Vincent van Gogh: Country Cottages Among the Trees

Until 31 December 2026 the National Museum in Krakow is showing the only Vincent van Gogh painting in a Polish public collection. It is a small landscape from September 1883, on loan from the John Paul II Collection. The single canvas hangs in the European Art Gallery, and the ordinary Main Building ticket gets you in.

The National Museum in Krakow on the exhibition:

At the European Art Gallery of the National Museum in Kraków, we are exhibiting the only painting by Vincent van Gogh in Polish public collections, entitled Country Cottages Among the Trees, from the John Paul II Collection belonging to the Archdiocese of Warsaw.

The work was created in September 1883 and represents the artist’s early Dutch period. It is an intimate landscape depicting modest rural buildings set amidst a dense mass of trees. The simplicity of the composition, the economy of formal means, and the dark, subdued colour palette place the work within the aesthetic of realism and stand in stark contrast to the artist’s later French period, marked by intense colours and the influence of Impressionism. The painting reveals strong links to the Hague School, as well as indirect references to the tradition of 17th-century Dutch landscape painting.

What to expect

Set your expectations before you buy a ticket. This is one picture, 28.5 x 39.5 cm, catalogued as F18 / JH397, hanging among more than a hundred works, mostly paintings, in the European Art Gallery rather than in a room of its own. The word “exhibition” promises more than the wall delivers.

The gallery runs backwards in time. You enter from the museum’s modernist hall and walk from the most recent works to the Spanish Romanesque Madonnas in the last room, so an 1883 landscape belongs to the youngest part of the route. The museum does not say which room it is in.

The painting has had an unlikely life. For years it sat with other canvases by the artist in a carpenter’s attic, considered worthless; in 1902 the whole attic was bought for a token sum and some pictures were swapped for beer. It later passed through a Rotterdam gallery and a Swiss private collection before a Christie’s sale in London in 1987 brought it to Warsaw.

Before coming to Krakow it was examined and restored. According to the museum’s press release, its LANBOZ laboratory spent nine months on it in 2021 together with specialists from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, using ultraviolet light, X-rays, microscopes and scanners. Conservators cleaned the surface, reinforced the oak support and made a new frame.

Fifteen minutes is enough for the painting itself - it is small and dark, and you need to stand close. Allow 60-90 minutes for the whole European Art Gallery, which is the real reason to come up here.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the National Museum in Krakow website .

Context

Van Gogh painted his first oils in The Hague in December 1881, coached by his cousin Anton Mauve, a painter of the Hague School. He lived in The Hague until September 1883, and this landscape comes from the very end of that stay. The Sunflowers and The Bedroom in Arles were still about five years, one move to France and a complete change of palette away.

The date and place have been revised. Older publications put the painting in Nuenen, and some coverage in February 2026 still did. After the research the museum adopted a new dating, the first half of September 1883, near The Hague, and that is how the exhibition page labels the work.

The canvas belongs to the Archdiocese of Warsaw and has been on deposit at the Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszyński in Warsaw since 2020; Zbigniew Karol Porczyński bought it in 1987. It travels. Warsaw put it on show on 26 April 2024 and the Family Home of John Paul II in Wadowice from 21 May 2025; Krakow has it as a guest until the end of 2026.

Tickets and time

There is no separate ticket. The exhibition page says admission is included in the price of the ticket to the branch. That is the Main Building’s permanent-galleries ticket: 45 PLN standard, 35 PLN reduced, 90 PLN family, 1 PLN for pupils and students.

Do not confuse it with the temporary-exhibition ticket for other rooms (35 PLN / 25 PLN); the van Gogh only needs the first. Buy online at bilety.mnk.pl or at the desk.

One ticket, two shows. The same branch ticket also covers “The Faces of Czapski” in the Main Building, open since 18 September 2026. A Main Building ticket also admits you to the permanent exhibitions of seven smaller National Museum branches, among them the Szołayski House and the Jan Matejko House. The museum does not say how soon you have to use it.

Tuesdays: the museum does not say. Permanent exhibitions in every branch are free on Tuesdays. The van Gogh hangs in a permanent gallery and is priced like one, but the exhibition page files it under “temporary exhibition”. If you plan a Tuesday visit, ask at the desk.

On the free day individual visitors still have to collect a free entry pass at the ticket office.

Hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00-18:00 (10 AM to 6 PM), closed Monday. The museum admits visitors until 30 minutes before closing, so be at the desk by 17:30. The cloakroom is compulsory and free, and backpacks and large bags stay there. Nothing points to timed tickets here: the price list mentions day-and-hour tickets only for the Czartoryski Museum.

English on site: the audio guide is available in English for 7 PLN, 5 PLN reduced. The museum does not say whether the wall labels in the European Art Gallery are in English. Its Polish and English price lists also give different rates for a foreign-language guide, so confirm the price when you book. The museum honours the Large Family Card and the Krakow Family Card, and children under 7 go free.

Best for anyone curious about where van Gogh started. If you are after the yellows, the swirls and the Sunflowers, skip it: no painting from that period is held in any Polish public collection. If you are already heading for the European Art Gallery or for Czapski, the van Gogh is a sure stop on the way round, but not a reason to cross the country.

Events

• 6 December 2026, 11:00 - family tour of the European Art Gallery for children aged 6-10, 15 PLN per person (child and adult alike), limited places. Tickets at bilety.mnk.pl; tour details on the museum’s Polish site . The listing does not mention van Gogh; it is a tour of the gallery where the painting hangs.

What the press says

Architectural Digest Polska (3 Feb 2026, Barbara Ruppel): set the painting against the newly opened European Art Gallery. It also noted that the painting had been on show in Warsaw since April 2024 - article on the van Gogh at the MNK (Polish-language source).

Trójka, Polish Radio (3 Feb 2026, Ewelina Kołaczek/PAP): a news-agency report from the opening. It stressed that the research made it possible to trace, step by step, how the picture was painted - report on Trójka’s site (Polish-language source).

Rynek i Sztuka (4 Feb 2026, A.A.): followed the painting from the 1902 sale of the attic’s contents through Belgian and Swiss collections to Poland in the 1980s. It also covered the research and conservation programme - article on the painting’s history (Polish-language source).

LoveKraków (5 Feb 2026, editorial staff): led with the science. It quoted the head of the museum’s laboratory, who said they now know step by step how the painting was made - report from the presentation (Polish-language source).

Label Magazine (7 Feb 2026, MG): read the picture as a survival story. It was painted five years before the Sunflowers, then lay forgotten for years in a carpenter’s attic - article on Poland’s only van Gogh (Polish-language source).

whiteMAD (26 Mar 2024, Adam Zys): published in English two years before the Krakow showing, on the authentication itself. It quoted Dr Julio del Hoyo on pigments matching those van Gogh described in letters to his brother - article on the research .

Five items cover the Krakow showing, all from the opening week (3-7 February 2026), and none is critical. These are reports and previews rather than reviews; no critical review in the art press could be found.

Updates

• 23 Sep 2026 - the exhibition page confirms the dates (29 January 2026 - 31 December 2026) and the price (45 / 35 PLN, included in the branch ticket). Last admission corrected to 30 minutes before closing, as stated in the museum’s FAQ . The quotation above is now the museum’s own English text. Since 18 September “The Faces of Czapski” has been on in the same building on the same ticket.
• 13 Sep 2026 - dates and prices checked against the museum’s own page: unchanged (29 January 2026 - 31 December 2026, branch ticket 45 / 35 PLN). Some outlets wrote that the painting stays “until early 2027” (Architectural Digest, 3 February 2026), but the exhibition page states 31 December 2026, and that is the date kept here (exhibition page ).

See also

• The Faces of Czapski - in the same Main Building on the same ticket, until 31 January 2027; the easiest way to turn one visit into two exhibitions.
• Museum of John Paul II and Primate Wyszyński, Warsaw - has held the painting on deposit since 2020.
• Roots and Sky. The Polish Chapter in the Collection of the Kyiv National Art Gallery - at the Cloth Hall (Sukiennice), home of the museum’s Gallery of 19th-Century Polish Art, until 18 October 2026.
• Picasso and the Pikasiaks. Modern Ceramics - at the Szołayski House, if Dutch realism leaves you wanting the twentieth century.

Museum profile: National Museum in Krakow - Main Building .