The collection includes the following sets:
The collection was created almost entirely in Wroclaw after 1945, but thematically relates to the pre-war collection of the Lubomirski Museum, in which portraits, images of historical figures, historical scenes and patriotic allegories played a key role. Due to its institutional proximity to the Ossolineum Library, the Art Division also collects paintings with literary themes, such as material related to Juliusz Słowacki. The collection currently comprises almost 300 paintings, mostly by Polish artists, and chronologically covers a wide range from the 15th to the 20th century. Of particular note are masterpieces of medieval Krakow painting from the pre-war collection, such as the epitaph of Jan of Ujazd from the first half of the 15th century and the triptych with scenes from the life of St Stanislaus from around 1505, as well as works by 19th-century painters (Jan Matejko, Józef Brandt, Antoni Piotrowski) from the collection of Jan and Jadwiga Nowak-Jeziorański.
There are more than 300 miniatures in the collection, 250 of which come from the Lviv collections. They are mainly portraits of historical figures, including images of people associated with Poland: Augustus II the Strong - by George Frederick Dinglinger (1670-1733), Stanislaw Leszczynski - by the French miniaturist Philippe Jacob Loutherbourg the Elder (c. 1698-1768), Stanislaw August Poniatowski - an anonymous work from the late 18th century, and Tadeusz Kosciuszko - by Jozef Grassi (1757-1838). Two portraits of the Museum's co-founder Henryk Lubomirski by Jakub Touron (1740-1787) and Józef Kreutzinger (1751-1829) are particularly valuable. In addition to portrait miniatures, the collection also includes miniatures depicting historical and mythological scenes, such as the Landscape with Hermes, Helios and Selene painted on parchment by Jan Brueghel the Elder, known as Velvet (1568-1625).
An exceptionally valuable group is the collection of drawings by European masters, which currently numbers over 1,000 items. It is mainly the result of gifts from three donors: Ignacy Skarbek in 1843, Karol Kühnel in 1868 and the gift of Henryk Lubomirski, which was incorporated into the Lubomirski Museum by his son in 1869. The oldest part of the collection, now in Wroclaw, consists of over 750 items and is a fragment of the original collection. However, it contains such exceptional drawings as Albrecht Dürer's Head of a Bearded Old Man (1471-1528), Peter Paul Rubens' Portrait of Duke Lorenzo de Medici (1577-1640) and the country's largest group of drawings by Rembrandt (1606-1669) and his pupils. The museum's holdings also include drawings from the Italian, Dutch, French and German schools, including an interesting collection of Rudolphine art.
With over 15,000 items, the Collection of Polish Drawings is made up of post-war gifts and acquisitions, as well as two important sets from the pre-war period - a fragment of the collection collected in Medyka by Gwalbert Pawlikowski (1792-1852) and works collected by the Cracow antiquarian Ambroży Grabowski (1782-1868) in the portfolio Handdrawings of Poles. Paintings of our compatriots. The earliest works include drawings: Apotheosis of St Barbara by Marcin Altomonte (1657?-1745), Project for an Altar Painting with Scenes from the Passion of Christ by Franciszek Lekszycki (d. 1668), Assumption of the Virgin by Andrzej Radwański (1709/11-1762) and Feast on Ice by Jan Piotr Norblin (1745-1830). Works of great artistic and iconographic value include Scenes from the Kościuszko Uprising by Aleksander Orłowski (1771-1832), General Jan Henryk Dąbrowski at the Head of the Legions by Juliusz Kossak (1824-1899), and Mohort and Prince Józef Poniatowski and the Tomaszów Bourgeoisie by Piotr Michałowski (1800-1855).
Unique items in the collection of early Polish graphics are Tomasz Treter's Regum Poloniae Icones (1547-1600) - a copperplate engraving and watercolour portrait of Polish kings from Lech I to Zygmunt III, and Tomasz Makowski's De Sanctis Angeles Libellus (1575-1630) - a series of copperplate engravings printed on both sides of silk sheets. The works of Jan Piotr Norblin (1745-1830) and Michał Płoński (1778-1812), who allude to Rembrandt's etchings, stand out among the works of the younger generation of engravers. Of great iconographic value is the Collection of the Most Beautiful and Interesting Areas of Galicia, an album of 35 lithographs after drawings by Antoni Lange (d. 1842), published by Piller in Lwów (Lviv) in 1823.
The collection now comprises more than 9,000 graphics and almost 200 graphic albums, and was mainly built up in the post-war period. Most of the prints are purchases and gifts from the Wroclaw period, only about 430 graphics come from the former Lviv holdings. An important part, however, is the richly represented and systematically supplemented collection of graphics from the first half of the 20th century (including Kazimierz Sichulski, Stanisław Ostoja-Chrostowski, Edmund Bartłomiejczyk, Władysław Skoczylas, Władysław Pankiewicz, Leon Wyczółkowski, Jan Rubczak). These are works of high artistic value, executed in a variety of techniques. In the post-war years, works by contemporary graphic artists were acquired: The Nine (Krystyna Wróblewska, Bogna Krasnodębska-Gardowska, etc.), artists from the circle of the Wrocław Academy of Fine Arts (Stanisław Dawski, Stanisław Wojewódzki), artists connected with Wrocław and Lower Silesia (Józef Gielniak, Stanisław Grabczyk), as well as graphics from other artistic centres such as Kraków (Stanisław Jakubowski, Stanisław Raczyński), Warsaw (Maria Hiszpańska-Neumann), Upper Silesia (Paweł Steller, Irena and Zygmunt Acedański), Toruń and Pomerania. As a result, the collection of Polish Graphics of the 20th and 21st centuries provides a fairly complete overview of the graphic art of certain artists. The collection also includes works by contemporary artists: Eugeniusz Get-Stankiewicz, Małgorzata Stanielewicz, Jarosław Jędrzejewski.
Graphic art by artists of the European schools is collected mainly for the artistic value of the works. These include the woodcut The Fall from the Cross from the Great Passion cycle by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), a small set of etchings by Rembrandt (1606-1669), two albums of hand-gilded copper engravings published at the end of the 17th century by Philips Galle in Icones illustrim feminarum Veteri Testamenti and Icones illustrium feminarum Novi Testamenti with female figures from the Old and New Testaments, probably from the Ossolineum collections themselves, and works from the circle of the so-called Rubens school of printmaking (1577-1640): Schelte a Bolswert (1586-1659) Dance of the Villagers and Lucas Vorstermann (1595-1675) Illustration from the Book of Job. Unique in the Polish collection are etchings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770) from the cycle Scherzi di fantasia and a set of Varii Capricci donated by Count Leon Pininski in 1938.
With around 55,000 items, the collection of ex libris is one of the largest in Poland. It began with the collections of Zygmunt Klemensiewicz and Tadeusz Solski, acquired after the war. It consists mainly of Polish ex libris from the 16th century to the present day. Among the oldest are the ex libris of the Krakow doctors Piotr Wedeliciusz from 1532 and Antoni Schneeberger from 1565, as well as three ex libris of the Bishop of Wroclaw Andrzej Jerin from 1570-1588. The most numerous are the 20th-century ex libris, among which the work of many artists is represented by complete sets of their works. A particular enrichment of the collection was the acquisition of many outstanding ex libris from the collection of Janusz Mikołaj Szymański and the collection of the Brodzki family.
The photographic collection comprises some 41,000 items. It includes documentary photographs taken between 1855 and 1939. A small part of the collection was created after the Second World War (e.g. theatre photographs from Krakow's theatres and works by Jadwiga Nowak-Jeziorańska). Thematically, the collection is an iconography of people, events and places from the territory of Poland, especially from the eastern countries of the former Commonwealth, as well as an overview of former photographic institutions.
Thematic groups include photographs of the January Uprising insurgents and prints from the First World War. A separate group is made up of theatrical items. Worth mentioning are early views of Vilnius by Józef Czechowicz, Lublin by Wanda Chicińska and Żółkwi by Teodor Szajnoka. Also of interest is a portfolio of views of Vilnius by Jan Bułhak, dedicated to Lucjan Rydel in 1914, and a portfolio of photographs of Krzemieniec from 1937-1939 by Henryk Hermanowicz.
Among the iconographic materials contained in the reproductions, which number more than 30,000 items, the collection of postcards from the first half of the 20th century stands out - an important source of knowledge about life in Central Europe at that time. In terms of quantity, postcards with views of Polish towns and cities (especially from the Borderlands), theatrical items, cards relating to the First World War and the Legions, as well as reproductions of paintings by Polish artists and images of people, dominate.
