The Beauty of Passing. Contemporary Botanical Illustration

From 1 to 26 September 2026 a single display case in the basement of Wilanów Palace held watercolours, graphite drawings and ink works by Izabela Wolska-Kuśmider: leaves from the Wilanów gardens at successive stages of their lives.

The Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów on the exhibition:

There are things we do not notice until we learn to look more closely. In the transformation of nature there is a story about time. We invite you to an exhibition of works by Izabela Wolska-Kuśmider.

Every spring we marvel at young leaves. In summer they become almost invisible to us - they form the background of the landscape, obvious and unchanging. In autumn they briefly draw the eye again with a blaze of colour, only to vanish underfoot a few days later. It seems their story lasts a single season. And yet every leaf lives a life of its own. It is born, matures, changes, ages and departs. In this seemingly ordinary transformation there is a story about time.

The works presented in the exhibition grow out of that tradition but take it in a new direction. They do not show a perfect specimen. They are not about botany. They are about transformation. Each leaf is shown at a precisely chosen moment of its existence. Some are only unfolding towards the light. Others have reached the fullness of life. Others still bear the marks of rain, insects, wind or the first cold. The plants used to create all of the works come from the historic gardens surrounding the Museum of King Jan III’s Palace at Wilanów.

What to expect

The display was in the palace basement, in an exhibition case beside the bookshop, and was included in the palace ticket. It was self-guided and open during palace hours. The works were in watercolour, graphite and ink. It ran for under four weeks, far shorter than the two shows running alongside it in the palace, Rubensiana and The Sobieskis and the Stuarts.

After the show

The exhibition page mentions neither a catalogue nor a next venue. The nearest thing to one is a free digital catalogue, Wilanowskie Florilegium. Contemporary Botanical Illustration (a PDF download on the project page, in Polish): illustrations of plants from the Wilanów gardens made by participants in workshops led by Izabela Wolska-Kuśmider.

No reviews or press coverage of the exhibition could be found, and the museum has published no attendance figure.

You can still meet the artist at Wilanów. She leads two-day botanical illustration workshops, Royal Colours (Królewskie kolory), in the Carriage House (Wozownia), on Saturday and Sunday from 10:00 to 16:00. The next ones start on 10 and 24 October, 21 November and 12 December 2026; they cost 400 PLN for both days with materials included, and are for adults, beginners welcome (details and booking, in Polish; the museum does not say whether they are taught in English).

On now at Wilanów:

• Rubensiana. Collecting Fascinations in Poland, 17th-21st Centuries - a study of when a workshop replica stopped counting as the equal of a work by the master’s own hand; in the north wing of the palace until 31 December 2026.
• The Sobieskis and the Stuarts - The Splendour and Spectre of the Crown - the story of Jan III Sobieski’s granddaughter and her marriage to the pretender to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, until 13 December 2026.

Related exhibitions on now:

• Four Seasons - Mazovia - the same changes in nature through the seasons, seen in the landscape of the region around Warsaw; at the Museum of the Polish Peasant Movement on Aleja Wilanowska, weekdays 8:30-15:30, with no closing date announced.
• Adolph Menzel (1815-1905). The Tireless Observer - paintings, drawings and prints by the 19th-century German artist the title calls a tireless observer, for anyone who came to the botanical show for the precision of the drawing; in the main building of the National Museum in Warsaw until 13 December 2026.

Museum profile: Wilanów Palace.