A World of Things. Acquisitions 2023-2025

From 5 May to 30 September 2026 the Royal Łazienki Museum showed more than 20 of the nearly 60 objects it acquired in 2023-2025, slotted into the permanent interiors of five buildings in the park rather than gathered in one room.

The Royal Łazienki Museum on the exhibition:

Paintings, among them a portrait of King Stanisław August, historic porcelain objects and carriage lanterns from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The valuable acquisitions that have enriched the museum’s collection in recent years can be seen at a temporary exhibition at the Royal Łazienki.

The Royal Łazienki Museum consistently expands its collection of works of art, decorative objects and iconographic documents. Its focus lies above all on objects historically connected with the Royal Łazienki. It also seeks items that help develop the narrative of the present display, including drawings, prints and photographs showing the buildings, parts of the gardens and the social life that went on in them.

Over recent years (2023-2025) nearly 60 varied objects entered the museum’s collection. Some of them - more than 20 objects - are presented at the temporary exhibition “A World of Things of the Royal Łazienki Museum. Acquisitions 2023-2025”. They include the “Portrait of Stanisław August in coronation robes and armour” from Marcello Bacciarelli’s workshop, copies of two paintings by Hubert Robert once in the monarch’s collection, a watercolour by Zygmunt Vogel showing the northern part of the garden with the monument to Jan III, vessels and decorative objects from the Meissen porcelain manufactory, and an album made in 1941 by Albert Wild, the German gardener of the Royal Łazienki, containing photographs and reports on work and events in the garden.

What to expect

The acquisitions were placed in the Palace on the Isle, the Myślewicki Palace, the White House, the Old Orangery and the Kubicki Stables, so seeing them meant walking the park rather than visiting one room. Admission was covered by the Royal Łazienki multi-site pass and was free on Fridays. Until 30 June the display was complemented by free boards in the Open-Air Gallery at ul. Agrykola 1, near the Hermitage, showing acquisitions displayed indoors as well as objects kept out of the interiors for conservation reasons - among them Albert Wild’s album of 1941.

The range was wide. Next to an etching by Adriaen Frans Boudewyns of 1685 showing the old château at Versailles, the museum showed mid-18th-century Meissen porcelain in the White House dining room. The acquisitions also included Maria Papa Rostkowska’s marble sculpture “The Promise of Happiness” (Obietnica szczęścia) of 1994 in the Gallery of Polish Sculpture. The Kubicki Stables held two pairs of carriage lanterns from German coachbuilders of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The exhibition description, with the full object list broken down by building, remains on the museum’s website (in Polish).

Updates

• 2026-10-01 - the exhibition closed on 30 September 2026, with no extension (source: the museum’s list of temporary exhibitions).

After the show

Current exhibitions at the Royal Łazienki:

• Chic and Conventions. Costumes from the Film “The Doll” - until 13 December 2026; 32 costumes from Maciej Kawalski’s film stand in three of the buildings that also held the acquisitions (the Palace on the Isle, the Myślewicki Palace, the Old Orangery), on the same joint ticket.
• Heliograms in the Solomon Room. In Search of Light - until 31 January 2027; Nicolas Grospierre’s works fill the frames left by Marcello Bacciarelli’s paintings, burnt in 1944 - the same Bacciarelli whose workshop produced the portrait of Stanisław August shown here.

Other current shows in Warsaw on collecting and the royal court:

• Rubensiana. Collecting Fascinations in Poland, 17th-21st Centuries - at Wilanów Palace until 31 December 2026; a show about the line between original, workshop replica and copy, the very status of the Bacciarelli workshop portrait and the Hubert Robert copies seen here.
• The Sobieskis and the Stuarts - The Splendour and Spectre of the Crown - at Wilanów Palace until 13 December 2026; about the granddaughter of Jan III, whose monument by the Agrykola bridge appeared in this exhibition in Zygmunt Vogel’s watercolour and on a Berlin medal of 1789.

Museum profile: Royal Łazienki Museum.