All the Faces of the Queen - Intervention

For the duration of the exhibition “Anna Jagiellon. All the Faces of the Queen” , the queen’s portrait has left its usual place at Wawel Royal Castle. In the empty spot the museum has hung a contemporary painting by Ewa Juszkiewicz from 2012, in which the woman’s face is covered by fabric. The intervention is on view from 23 October 2026 to 14 February 2027, as long as the main exhibition.

Wawel Royal Castle on the exhibition (our translation; the castle publishes no English text for this intervention):

Ewa Juszkiewicz’s painting Untitled / after Rogier van der Weyden (2012) is a temporary intervention of contemporary art in the space of the Castle. It has been placed where the portrait of Anna Jagiellon is normally displayed, now moved to the first floor for the temporary exhibition “Anna Jagiellon. All the Faces of the Queen”. A photograph beside it is a reminder of this.

The subtitle of the exhibition, “All the Faces of the Queen”, refers to the many images of Anna Jagiellon and to the different roles she held in her life - daughter of Sigismund the Old and Bona Sforza, sister of the last Jagiellons, Grand Duchess of Lithuania, queen and ruler.

The temporary exhibition devoted to Anna Jagiellon shows her through various depictions and contexts. Juszkiewicz’s intervention extends this story with a contemporary reflection on the very way in which the image of a historical figure is created.

What to expect

This is not an exhibition in the usual sense but a single painting in one of the castle’s rooms. According to the intervention’s page you see it with the Castle Second Floor ticket, and the castle lists it among the exhibitions on that route, alongside the State Rooms and the Turkish Tents. So do not look for it on the first floor, where the exhibition about the queen is. The museum does not say which room the canvas hangs in. You will recognise it by the photograph of Anna’s portrait that the castle has placed beside it.

Ewa Juszkiewicz, “Untitled / after Rogier van der Weyden” (2012), oil on canvas, 140 × 90 cm, from the collection of Galeria Bielska BWA. The model was a portrait of a woman in a white veil that Rogier van der Weyden painted around 1440; the original belongs to the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. Almost everything of the Fleming’s picture has survived: the pose, the costume and the light on the fabrics. Only the thing you usually look at a portrait for is gone - in place of the face there is a twist of cloth.

The juxtaposition has an edge. One floor down, the exhibition promises “all the faces of the queen”, while here, in the place of her portrait, hangs a woman without a face. The museum’s text, signed by Dr Bogumiła Wiśniewska, reads this as a question about how pictures shape our idea of women from the past, and what happens when one element of an image is changed.

Context

Ewa Juszkiewicz was born in 1984 in Gdańsk and lives in Warsaw. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk and did her doctoral studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 2014 Thames & Hudson included her in “100 Painters of Tomorrow”, a book on the most promising young painters in the world. Her signature is portraits of women after the old masters, in which the face is replaced by fabric, flowers, shells or locks of hair.

The painting now hanging at Wawel has a history of its own. It was one of the two portraits for which Juszkiewicz won the Grand Prix of the 41st “Bielska Jesień” Painting Biennale at Galeria Bielska BWA in 2013. That gallery owns it today.

The original is a small Flemish bust from 1435-1440. It stands out in van der Weyden’s work for one thing: the woman looks straight at the viewer, although this painter’s sitters usually lower their eyes or gaze into the distance. Juszkiewicz has covered precisely the gaze that makes the Berlin portrait exceptional.

Anna Jagiellon (1523-1596), daughter of Sigismund the Old and Bona, was Queen of Poland from 1575 and the last monarch of the Jagiellonian dynasty. After the death of her husband, Stephen Báthory, she secured the election of her nephew, Sigismund III Vasa, as King of Poland.

Tickets and time

• Tickets: there is no separate one. The intervention’s page gives entry with the Castle Second Floor ticket. In October and December, Tuesday to Sunday, it costs 57 PLN regular, 43 PLN reduced. The same rooms are covered by the Castle ticket for both floors, 95 PLN regular and 71 PLN reduced, audio guide included.
• November: free. Tuesday to Sunday, 9:00-17:00 (9 AM-5 PM), the Castle Second Floor route is part of Free November. Free passes are issued at the ticket desks on the day (8:45-16:00) and online a week ahead, at most five per person. The same pass admits you to the Anna Jagiellon exhibition, so in November you see both at no cost. Last entry at 16:00.
• Mondays. In October and December, 10:00-16:00, the Castle Second Floor route is free; passes are issued only at the ticket desk on the day, until they run out, last entry at 15:10. For Mondays in November the museum lists as free only the First Floor, Wawel Recovered and Between the Walls, and the Second Floor is not on that list. The Anna Jagiellon exhibition gives opening hours only for Tuesday to Sunday, so a Monday is no good for combining the two.
• Closed days. The castle is closed on 1 November, and the intervention’s page also lists 24-26 December. On 11 November only the Second Floor and the Armoury are open, the ticket desks are closed and free passes are online only. You can see the painting that day, but the Anna Jagiellon exhibition is closed on 11 November, as it is on 31 December.
• Hours. Tuesday to Sunday 9:00-17:00, last entry 50 minutes before closing. The castle has published prices and Monday hours for October, November and December; for January and February 2027, check the What to see page (in Polish) before your visit.
• How long: five minutes is enough for the painting itself, but the whole Second Floor route leads to it. Allow an hour.
• Quieter times: the museum itself names 15:00-17:00, Tuesday to Friday, as the least crowded hours. On the first and last Wednesday of the month quiet hours apply on the Second Floor at that time, with no groups and no guided tours.
• Access: according to the castle the Second Floor route is accessible along its whole length, including for electric wheelchairs. A lift takes you up to the arcaded galleries; it may be used only with a member of staff present.
• Best for: everyone going to the Anna Jagiellon exhibition, and anyone following contemporary Polish painting who rarely has a reason to step into the Wawel state rooms.
• Skip if: you are not planning the Second Floor route. Outside November, 57 PLN for one painting is a lot; then the canvas is a bonus to the rooms, not a reason to visit.
• Buying: tickets are sold at bilety.wawel.krakow.pl a month ahead, for a set entry time, with daily limits.

See also

• Anna Jagiellon. All the Faces of the Queen - the main exhibition: six rooms on the castle’s first floor and the known portraits of the queen, until 14 February 2027. That is where the portrait whose place Juszkiewicz’s painting has taken now hangs.
• Lares and Penates. On Building a Sense of Security in Architecture - the castle’s other temporary exhibition, until 6 January 2027, at no extra charge with the Castle and Castle First Floor tickets. Another contemporary project in a historic residence.
• Warrior Women: Japanese Herstories - at the Manggha Museum until 11 November 2026. A different look at how old pictures portrayed women: warrior women in Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints.
• Wawel Royal Castle - routes, prices, free Mondays and how to get there, in one place.

Opening hours and current details are on the intervention’s page (in Polish).

Museum profile: Wawel Royal Castle .