Plans of the Royal Castle in Warsaw for 2024

In 2024, the Royal Castle in Warsaw invites you to an exceptional journey through the works of great masters such as Rafael Santi, Pietro Perugino, Jan Matejko, and Władysław Hasior. But that’s not all. In addition to important temporary exhibitions, the extensive list of planned events includes the inauguration of new permanent exhibitions: the Porcelain Gallery, presenting a large collection of the most valuable antique wares from the royal Polish and foreign manufactories, as well as the Italian Cabinet and the renovated Throne Room. The magnificent royal year will be concluded with an exhibition of masterpieces from the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art in Kiev. In 2024, we will also invite you to events related to the culmination of the 50th anniversary of the Castle’s reconstruction and further presentations of valuable acquisitions.

The exceptional exhibition year at the Royal Castle will begin with the presentation of the unknown face of Jan Matejko. This is a rare opportunity to explore the lesser-known but equally intriguing works of the most prominent representative of historicism in Polish painting. In spring, we will discover a sunny Italy through the works of Gaspar van Wittel, an Italian painter of Dutch descent, who inspired successive generations of artists, especially Antonio Canal and his no less famous nephew – Bernardo Bellotto. April will be marked by the grand opening of a new exhibition – the Porcelain Gallery, which will showcase valuable items we have been collecting for many years – intricately decorated masterpieces, presenting this unique field of art in its most delicate and exquisite form. Summer will be dedicated to the work of one of the most prominent Polish artists of the 20th century – Władysław Hasior.

In autumn, you can expect a major sensation – the first exhibition in Poland of works by the famous Rafael Santi, one of the most important artists of the Italian High Renaissance, as well as distinguished artists such as Pietro Perugino and Giulio Romano who collaborated with the Italian master. Raphael’s exhibitions always arouse powerful emotions, but the exhibition at the Castle will be an unprecedented event in Poland. For the first time in history, visitors will be able to see so many works by this artist – both oil paintings and drawings, on loan from the most prominent museums worldwide. Among the exhibited objects will be the only drawing by Raphael in the Polish collections, which was recently acquired for the collection of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

2024 is also the final year of the grand celebration of the 50th anniversary of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw, culminating in the opening of new permanent exhibitions: the Italian Cabinet, the Porcelain Gallery, and the Throne Room, which has been renovated and enriched with newly reconstructed embroidery decoration. This is the result of a long-standing effort to enrich the Castle’s permanent tour route, carried out through a carefully performed purchasing campaign that had been planned with great panache many years ahead.

For 2024, we have prepared inspiring exhibitions that will allow visitors to immerse themselves in various aspects of art and culture. The great names of the masters of painting and works previously not displayed in Poland, a highly diverse exhibition offer, and intensive preparations for the opening of new exhibitions, which will crown our purchasing efforts, will make the Castle – an important national symbol of the Poles – even more beautiful and recognizable in the world. I am deeply convinced that this year will be even better than the previous one, ending with another record-breaking attendance at our institution”, says Prof. Wojciech Fałkowski, Director of the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

Expansion of the collection and presentation of new acquisitions

Over the last few years, the Royal Castle in Warsaw has been working intensively to expand its art collection. Among the last year’s most notable acquisitions, some of which will be displayed in temporary exhibitions and shows already this year, are the Figure of a Soldier in All’antica Armor – a drawing by Raphael himself, the painting Madonna and Child by Paolo Uccello, the painting Partia Trictraka by Mattia Preti, and two high-class paintings by Agostino Tassi: A Shipyard and The Capture of Troy. Also noteworthy is the Castle’s valuable porcelain collection, which in the past year has grown by several hundred new top-class objects, including products of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory of Meissen. The latest acquisitions also included a set of six portrait busts by the esteemed 17th-century Roman sculptor Alessandro Rondoni, which is an extremely rare example on the antiquarian market of a coherent Baroque set of monumental busts intended for display in palace interiors. A bust of the so-called Young Hadrian was presented during a press conference.

50th anniversary of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw

In 2024, the projects initiated as part of the jubilee celebration of the Castle’s reconstruction will continue, primarily focusing on the restoration of the Throne Room’s embroidery decoration and a new arrangement of the exhibition Destruction and Reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The next and final year of the anniversary will be devoted to the social role of the Castle as an institution. The main theme is: Castle of the Present, Castle of the Future. Within this topic, a scientific conference will be held and a beautifully designed jubilee album, a commemorative book, and a post-conference publication will be released.

Plans also include a grand anniversary gala, which will be held in autumn 2024 to conclude the celebrations. As in the period between 2021 and 2023, the 2024 celebrations will also feature a number of cultural and scientific events (including a scientific conference, an evening dedicated to Prof. Aleksander Gieysztor, celebrations marking the anniversary of the clock’s installation on the Clock Tower), and a special year-long educational programme initiated in 2021.

The exhibitions

Matejko Unknown. Works from the Private Collections, 5 March – 26 May 2024

The exhibition will feature nearly 50 works by Jan Matejko – oil paintings, watercolours, and drawings. Some of them include lesser-known works by the most prominent representative of historicism in Polish painting, revealing other areas of artistic interest of the artist known mainly for his large-format canvases depicting symbolic scenes from major events in Polish history. The vast majority of the objects on display come from private collections, usually not publicly exhibited, as emphasized in the exhibition title.

Italian Views by van Wittel

22 March – 23 June 2024

With the arrival of spring, the Royal Castle in Warsaw will open an exhibition of views of a sunny Italy. Their author, Gaspar van Wittel, was a painter of Dutch descent who settled in Italy at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and spent the rest of his life capturing views of his new homeland on canvas and paper. The exhibition will feature selected works by Gaspar van Wittel. Our visitors will mainly see views of Rome and Naples – two cities that were particularly important for the development of the painter’s artistic career. The works presented at the exhibition will take visitors to places that have been well-known and eagerly visited for centuries by travellers and connoisseurs of beauty, but depicted in an interesting and unconventional way.

Władysław Hasior. The Persistence of Experience

14 June – 8 September 2024

A temporary exhibition devoted to the works of Władysław Hasior, an eminent representative of Polish contemporary art, will crown the end of the 50th anniversary of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The event will symbolically refer to the exhibition of Hasior’s works that took place at the Royal Castle in Warsaw in 1974 – the first exhibition held in the rebuilt Castle. The temporary exhibition will mainly feature assemblages and banners, which are the core of the artist’s work. There will also be concrete sculptures “torn from the ground”, drawings, monument designs, slides, documentaries, as well as personal items related to Władysław Hasior.

Raphael. The Beauty of the Renaissance

15 October 2024 – 12 January 2025

The exhibition dedicated to Raphael, one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, will feature both the master’s works (paintings, drawings, and prints) and the works of artists he collaborated with. These will include works by Pietro Perugino, Giulio Romano, and Pintoricchio, to name a few. The exhibition will show the development of Raphael’s style from his early years, strongly influenced by works of the great masters of the early Italian Renaissance, to the period of the master’s activity in Rome. The exhibition’s scenario has been planned chronologically to present how the painter was receptive to the intellectual, social, political, and cultural environment in which he worked, developing new ways of expressing himself at different stages of his career. This exceptional exhibition will be the culmination of the 50th anniversary of the reconstruction of the Royal Castle. Among the exhibited works will be the drawing Figure of a Soldier in All’antica Armor, purchased for the Castle’s collection in 2023.

Masterpieces from the Khanenko Museum in Kiev

5 December 2024 – 9 March 2025

Nearly 40 objects loaned to the Royal Castle as part of museum exchange programmes from the collection of one of the largest museums in Ukraine will be on display on the latest major exhibition, scheduled to open in 2024. The works, never before shown in Poland, come from the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Art in Kiev. We will see paintings of the Italian, Dutch, French, and even Spanish schools, represented by the names of the greatest masters of painting, such as Bernardo Bellotto, Peter Paul Rubens, Claude Joseph Vernet, and Juan de Zurbarán. The diverse themes of the exhibited works will range from portraits through still lifes to views or scenes of antiquity. The real gem of the collection will be the presentation of a Venetian sedan chair.

In 2024, the Royal Castle in Warsaw will also continue its scientific and educational activities. Thematic conferences devoted to interesting historical events, popular educational series, meetings with curators, lectures on art history, and painting and drawing courses – these are events through which we, as a cultural institution, aim to inspire both young and older generations to discover the beauty of art and Polish history.