The Time of the Samurai

This exhibition traces the history and culture of the samurai at Lublin Castle - from their origins as a warrior class to the decline of the formation - weaving together themes of honour and loyalty with stories of intrigue and conspiracy. The museum publishes its own English page for the show .

The National Museum in Lublin on the exhibition:

The turbulent history of the samurai will be illustrated with woodcuts by two of Japan’s greatest woodcut artists, Utagawa Kuniyoshi and Utagawa Hiroshige, presented in two consecutive installments. These will include depictions of battle scenes, duels, and legendary events, as well as expressive portraits of warriors (musha-e) and landscapes from the ukiyo-e movement, or “images of the floating world.”

[…]

The exhibition will feature nearly 600 original Japanese artifacts from museums in Poland and abroad, including items from the SAMURAI Museum Berlin - Peter Janssen Collection, presented for the first time in Poland. A separate section of the exhibition will be dedicated to samurai depictions in film, manga, and anime.

What to expect

Beyond the martial imagery, the exhibition reveals the cultural dimension of samurai society - everyday life, religion, entertainment and art. Objects show Japanese craftsmanship, decorative techniques and symbolism-rich patterns, and a dedicated section covers the samurai’s presence in film, manga and anime. On 13-14 July 2026 the exhibition’s first section was closed for a display change while the second hall remained open - it is worth checking current availability before visiting.

The show was assembled from twelve collections. The museum lists five Polish national museums - Kraków, Poznań, Szczecin, Warsaw and Wrocław - plus the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology, the National Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw, regional museums in Radom, Krosno and Gliwice, the private collection of Anna Bielak, and the SAMURAI Museum Berlin. Around 150 objects come from Berlin, according to Radio Lublin’s report from the opening, and those are the ones shown in Poland for the first time.

What to look for:

• The woodblock prints by Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige - the museum hangs them in two consecutive rotations, so the selection on view in September is not the one that hung in spring. Battle scenes, duels, expressive warrior portraits (musha-e) and ukiyo-e landscapes.
• Armour, helmets and masks - together with bladed weapons, firearms and sword mounts, these form the military core of the display.
• A samurai sword from the museum’s earliest inventory - writing about the exhibition catalogue, the museum recalls that one of the first objects ever entered in its inventory books was a samurai sword. That is why this subject, in this anniversary year.
• A meditation garden and a tea ceremony space - two staged settings noted in Radio Lublin’s report from the opening.
• The film, manga and anime room - a separate space, described in the same Radio Lublin report as devoted to samurai imagery in contemporary culture (film, manga, anime); the best place to start if you are visiting with a teenager.

Context

The samurai were a military class that rose in Japan from the twelfth century and lost its standing only with the Meiji reforms of the 1870s. Most of what is on display here dates from the long peace of the Edo period (1603-1868), when a warrior with no war to fight became an administrator, a collector and a student of calligraphy. That paradox is the exhibition’s real subject.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858) worked in the same late-Edo print workshops and are now treated as the two poles of ukiyo-e: the first made his name with battle pieces and warrior portraits, the second with landscape. The museum translates ukiyo-e itself as “images of the floating world”.

The show is part of an anniversary. The National Museum in Lublin marks 120 years in 2026, counting from its formal opening on 12 December 1906, and it closed the previous year with a record of more than half a million visitors, as the regional daily “Dziennik Wschodni” reported.

Tickets and time

This is the final week: the exhibition closes on Sunday 27 September 2026. According to the museum’s opening-hours table , the show is open from 9:00 to 18:00 on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, and from 9:00 to 19:00 on Friday and Saturday. The museum’s free-admission days do not apply to it - in the same table the museum marks this exhibition “nie dotyczy” (not applicable).

A ticket to the exhibition costs 40 PLN (standard) or 25 PLN (reduced). You can buy it in the museum’s online ticket system , where you pick the day of your visit, or at the box office. The combined ticket covering the permanent displays, the chapel, the tower, the branch museums and the temporary exhibitions costs 80 PLN and is sold at the box office only.

Allow 90 minutes at the very least, realistically two hours. With close to 600 objects, a quick pass means looking at the armour and walking past the prints, and it is the prints that carry the story. An audio guide is included with the ticket; for this exhibition the museum produced a Polish version, an English version and a separate family trail in Polish.

English on site: the museum publishes a full English page for this exhibition and an English audio guide, and the catalogue is bilingual. It does not state whether the wall labels in the galleries are bilingual, so budget for the audio guide rather than assume English captions.

Who it is for: anyone drawn to Japan, to craft or to printmaking; families with children from roughly eight up, who will gravitate to the film and anime room; and anyone who wants to see the Berlin collection without leaving Poland. Skip it if you want a narrative, screen-heavy exhibition - this is first and foremost objects in cases.

The final weekend, 26 and 27 September, coincides with the second round of European Heritage Days, for which this museum is the regional coordinator. Expect crowds, and come on a weekday morning if you can.

The exhibition catalogue (324 pages, hardback, Polish and English texts, ISBN 978-83-68616-03-3) costs 170 PLN in the museum shop.

Events

• 27.09.2026, 11:00 and 14:00 - the last two curator-led tours, on the closing day
• 26.09.2026, 11:00 and 14:00 - curator-led tours
• 25.09.2026, 16:00 - curator-led tour
• 24.09.2026, 16:00 - curator-led tour
• 23.09.2026, 10:00 - guided tour for seniors

A ticket for a curator-led tour or the seniors’ tour costs 40 PLN (standard) or 25 PLN (reduced), from the museum’s ticket system or the box office. The museum’s tours are announced in Polish and it does not say that any of them is given in English.

In its farewell announcement the museum also mentions “special two-person opening-night tickets” without giving a price or terms - ask at the box office. The final weekend coincides with European Heritage Days, so book a tour in advance. Sources: the museum’s farewell announcement and tour list (both in Polish).

What the press says

No English-language coverage of this exhibition was found. The Polish reporting, in our words:

Radio Lublin (25 April 2026, KovA / PAP, ed. PaW): the opening-day report lists the meditation garden, the tea ceremony space and around 150 objects from Berlin - link .

Dziennik Wschodni (11 March 2026, Jan Mazurek): previewing the anniversary year, the paper gives the museum’s record attendance of more than half a million and names the samurai show as the year’s centrepiece - link .

Dziennik Wschodni (5 July 2026, Kamil Pomorski): an account of the “Summer at the Castle” programme - chanoyu, nō masks, calligraphy and an archery demonstration - which ran alongside the exhibition from 7 July to 13 August - link .

Nobody has published a review, as of 23 September 2026; everything available is a preview or an opening report. Curator Maciej Drewniak told Radio Lublin on opening day that this is the first exhibition of its kind in the Lublin region.

Updates

• 2026-09-23 - in its farewell announcement of 21 September the museum gathered the dates of its last curator-led tours, from 24 to 27 September (listed above). The exhibition ticket price (40 PLN, reduced 25 PLN) and the fact that free-admission days do not cover this show were added from the museum’s opening-hours table and its ticket system. A correction to the 14 September entry: the museum’s September programme , published on 1 September, already listed tours up to 27 September, workshops on 19 and 20 September and a talk with Professor Ewa Pałasz-Rutkowska on 20 September.
• 2026-09-14 - dates and programme checked: unchanged, the exhibition closes on 27 September 2026. Every announced accompanying event has already taken place - curator, senior and audio-described tours in May and June, and “Summer at the Castle” from 7 July to 13 August. The museum has announced nothing new for the final fortnight.

See also

• National Museum in Lublin (Lublin Castle) - the profile, with hours, prices and directions; the same ticket area holds nine permanent displays, including the history of weaponry and the Holy Trinity Chapel with its 1418 frescoes.
• My Hands Are Clean and My Floor Is Green - the other Lublin show closing on 27 September 2026, at Galeria Labirynt and free of charge; a good second half of the day after the castle.
• Asia and Pacific Museum in Warsaw - if the subject holds you: a permanent Warsaw collection of Asian art, open all year.

Tickets, opening hours and current information are available on the National Museum in Lublin’s website .

Museum profile: National Museum in Lublin (Lublin Castle) .