Classical art exhibitions in Cracow

Cracow is a fantastic place for those, who seek a dash of mystery in the spots of the past. And I can assure you that you will find it easy.
This week I had my lectures at two beautiful places. First of them was The Princes Czartoryski Museum placed at Pijarska Street. The building itself is one of the Old Town mansions, in opposite to the rococo church. I'll mention this building further.
Czartoryski collection is one of the most important and the largest collectives in Poland. It contains famous painting of Leonardo da Vinci's "Lady with an Ermine" or Rembrandt's "Merciful Samaritan".
Among those wonderful pieces of paintings, the belongings in the collection are Hussars saddles with extraordinary jewels craftsmanship, Japonica from different periods, artifacts from China, Rome, Greece, Orthodox Church art, furnitures, etc.

I fell in love with this painting

Few months ago I wrote about Royal Tapestries, the collection includes one of them

Top 2 below

Here's a little story about the da Vinci's painting - the background originally wasn't black, it was repainted around 17th or 18 century. The restoration process today "eats" a bit of a pose. It is also a matter of speculation about the background itself, some art historians mention that it could be similar view to the Mona Lisa.

Rembrandt's "Merciful Samaritan". Wonderful example of how to paint using underpainting and alla prima, and the great example of the technique itself.

Another interesting exhibition is located at the Wawel castle. Eighteenth-century art in Poland is not that popular as later one. As we are loving Wyspiański, Bilińska or Matejko's artworks, we are rarely knew the masters who influenced or left their marks in the history of the city. Last year, the National Museum opened large exhibition of Szymon Czechowicz and his workshop. Public opinion was split under the title, but the vast collection gave a new perspective of how to look at the old masters of our own.
Earlier, I mentioned church at Pijarska Street. It is one of the examples of the artwork of Andrzej Radwański, around the Old Town, including St. Anne church, Dominican Basilica or Wawel Cathedral.

The exhibition itself is focused on drawings. It may sound boring, but consider the fact, that drawings can be exhibited only for about month up to three months, and then they require specific restoration process or just being kept without lightning and specific conditions of air circulation and humidity. For example, if you'd get on Raphael exhibition, it is one life time occasion. Those drawings need to stay in close for another 50 years.
Andrzej Radwański's drawings comparing to the Italian master, require only 10 years.

He was taught in Pijarzy order from the age of twelve. Didn't exactly had an academic education, but at the age of fifteenth, he was already a self-working artist.
Radwański was well known up to nineteenth-century, till the great fire burnt his monumental paintings (e.g. at Franciscan church and Visitation sisters).

Design for a decoration of the Dome of the the chapel of St Scholastica in Tyniec