Between Art and Heart - A Watercolour Tale of the Lady of Puławy

from 13 September 2025

Watercolour painters from the Lublin region and their guests portray Princess Izabela Czartoryska and the landscape park she left behind. The show has hung in the Czartoryski palace in Puławy since 13 September 2025, and the museum gives no closing date. The museum publishes no English title; the one above is ours, and so is the translation of the museum’s Polish text below.

Czartoryski Museum in Puławy on the exhibition:
Twenty-eight artists - watercolour painters from Poland and abroad belonging to the Lublin Group - wishing to honour the 280th anniversary of the birth of this remarkable woman, created nearly 60 works inspired by her life, her achievements and the legacy she left behind.
The Lublin Group - is the informal name of watercolour artists linked to the Lublin region by their place of birth, of residence or of their art education. Guests/Friends were also invited to present their works: Honorata Mielniczenko - director of the Czartoryski Museum in Puławy (a graduate of the C.K. Norwid State Secondary School of Fine Arts in Lublin, and of art history at the Catholic University of Lublin and museum studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków), Paweł Maj - mayor of the City of Puławy (a graduate of the Secondary School of Fine Arts in Lublin and of the Faculty of Landscape Architecture at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences) and Jadwiga “Inka” Zamoyska, great-great-great-…granddaughter of Princess Izabela Czartoryska and daughter of the last Counts Zamoyski and owners of the Palace at Kozłówka.
The collection of works on show is remarkably varied. Starting from landscapes rendered with photographic precision, recording the architectural heritage Princess Izabela Czartoryska left in the Puławy park, among others the Temple of the Sibyl, the Gothic House, the Chinese Pavilion, the Alexandrian House and Marynka’s Palace;
through portraits of the princess, the realistic ones resting on remarkable sensitivity, to symbolic, many-coloured ones on the edge of surrealism and the grotesque, and finally those created with the help of artificial intelligence. The artists, each in their own unique way, turned to the princess’s rich life and above all to her visionary work.

What to expect

This is contemporary watercolour, not heritage objects: nearly 60 works, from faithful views of the park pavilions to portraits of the princess, some made with the help of artificial intelligence. It hangs inside the palace. The opening took place in the Gothic Hall on the first floor, but the museum does not say which room holds the works today - ask at the ticket desk.

The opening also produced a polyptych, “Izabela’s Artists”: four canvases measuring 90 x 360 cm together, painted in front of an audience by Dariusz Płecha and Tatiana Majewska from sketches by Artur Gołębiowski. It was given to the museum, as was a replica of the Royal Casket presented the same day. The museum does not say whether either gift is on display now.

Allow 30-40 minutes for the show itself. Do not travel to Puławy for it alone: it is an extra on a palace visit, and the palace ticket covers it.

The same building holds other temporary displays, also with no published dates. “SUBLIME” shows reconstructed historical dresses, and “Na wentach i w salonach” (At Charity Bazaars and in Salons) is in the Knights’ Hall. The panels of “Nieznane widoki puławskiej rezydencji” (Unknown Views of the Puławy Residence) hang in the entrance hall you cross to reach the ticket desk.

Context

Izabela Czartoryska, born Flemming (1745-1835), settled in Puławy in 1783 and made the residence a centre of Polish culture. She laid out the landscape park and wrote a gardening treatise, “Myśli różne o sposobie zakładania ogrodów” (Various Thoughts on Laying Out Gardens, 1805). In 1801 she opened the first Polish museum of a national character in the Temple of the Sibyl.

After the failed November Uprising of 1830-1831 the collections left Puławy; their core now forms the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Kraków, a separate institution from the one in Puławy. The town council declared 2025 the Year of Princess Izabela Czartoryska for her 280th birthday, and this show was part of it. Guests from outside the group, the museum’s director and the town’s mayor among them, show next to the painters.

Tickets and time

There is no separate ticket: the price list names no charge for temporary shows, and the standard ticket - 30 PLN full price, 22 PLN reduced - covers the palace displays.

A family ticket (two adults and children under 16) is 70 PLN; Large Family Card holders pay 15 PLN. The 15 PLN park-pavilions ticket does not include the palace. Tickets are sold only at the desk in the Hall of Tradition on the ground floor; cash, card and BLIK are accepted.

Admission is free on Mondays, and unlike the park pavilions the palace opens as usual, so you can see the show for nothing. From April to September the museum opens daily 9:00-17:00 (9 AM to 5 PM), last tickets 16:15; from October to March 8:00-16:00, last tickets 15:30.

To compare the paintings with the buildings they show, come between June and September, Tuesday to Sunday. Only then does the standard ticket also cover the Temple of the Sibyl, the Gothic House and the Alexandrian House; in the other months it admits you to the palace only.

One exception: on 3 October 2026 at 12:00 the museum runs a free historical walk that takes in the Temple of the Sibyl and the Gothic House. It is part of the national “Weekend Seniora z Kulturą” (Seniors’ Weekend with Culture).

The show has run for over a year and was made for an anniversary year that is now over. Before a trip made for its sake, phone +48 81 888 44 11. It suits watercolour lovers and visitors for whom Puławy means Princess Izabela first of all.

The core of her collection is in Kraków today, but the same ticket takes you into the permanent exhibition “Ojczyzno! Niechaj Cię uwiecznię!” (Homeland! Let Me Immortalise You!) in this palace, with objects from her collection and from that of her grandson, Prince Władysław.

English on site: the museum has no English-language website of its own (only an automatic translation widget) and states no English labels, audio guide or English-language tours for this show. The watercolours need no translation; the wall texts, if any, will be in Polish.

What the press says

Local reports, informative, none judging the works.

LPU24 (14 September 2025, Paweł Skibniewski): a report on the opening, with the live painting, the casket replica and weekend watercolour workshops - article, in Polish .

Puławy Town Hall (15 September 2025): the town’s report on the opening, recalling the history of the original casket of 1800, looted in 1939 - notice, in Polish .

Puławy Town Hall (18 May 2026): a Night of Museums round-up saying the show drew strong interest from visitors - notice, in Polish .

Curator

Dariusz Płecha, Marcelina Lubawa

Tickets and access

Check ticket prices and opening hours in the Czartoryski Museum in Puławy profile.