The National Museum in Cracow was established as Poland’s first national art collecting institution in 1879, when the nation was stripped of its statehood and its country by the partitioning powers. Until the end of World War I, it was the only such large museum accessible to the public in Poland and still today it remains an institution with the biggest number of collections, buildings and permanent exhibitions.

The collection of the National Museum in Cracow was sparked off by Nero’s Torches, a painting presented to the city of Cracow by its creator, Henryk Siemiradzki, on October 7th, 1879 with the intention of creating a gallery of national art in the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall). During the next few days more gifts were received from artists and collectors, and the City Council adopted a special resolution founding the Museum. The pace at which the collection was growing showed best how powerful the need for this type of institution was: the bequests were not only entire collections of great value but also buildings, which served as new branches of the Museum.

Initially, the collecting focus was on works of contemporary Polish art, much less so on foreign art. The profile evolved in time: in the beginning of the 20th century the scope of the holdings was expanded to cover also works of decorative arts, numismatics, arms and armour, archaeological and ethnographic objects, documents and historical memorabilia as well as the art of Far East. There were plans to open a department of natural history but after many years of transformations the Museum gave up on folk art and natural history. The same decision was made for Slavic archaeology: the Museum left for itself but a small collection of antiquities.

When after 1918 Poland was an independent country again, storing and exhibiting space turned out insufficient for the Museum’s holdings, which at that time comprised upward of a hundred thousand objects. Therefore, funds began to be raised to build a new seat for the Museum. The design of what is now known as the Main Building was widely acclaimed as one of the most advanced museum concepts in contemporary Europe. Unfortunately, the outbreak of World War II interrupted the construction works and the building was in use unfinished until 1970. The project was resumed the next year but was not finalised until 1990.

Back in 1950 the National Museum in Cracow absorbed the Princes Czartoryski Museum along with its Library and Archives, the oldest private museum. It was open to the public in 1801 at Puławy, and in 1876 moved to Cracow from Paris, where it had ended up after the fall of the November Uprising. The National Museum is the administrator of the holdings and buildings of the Princes Czartoryski Museum, despite the fact that in 1991 they were taken over by a foundation set up by Adam Karol Czartoryski, the heir and representative of the Czartoryski family.