Painting Gallery with Kalisz Silver

The art exhibition opens with a chronologically arranged picture gallery. First come three portraits of the Walewski family of the Kolumna coat of arms, anonymous 19th-century copies of older likenesses, followed by works by Józef Balukiewicz.

A large group of paintings is linked to the Kalisz-born painter Józef Wanat and the collection he assembled while living abroad. It includes two paintings by Olga Boznańska: Anemones and Portrait of the Painter Czesław Zawadziński. Next to them hang works by artists connected with Kalisz, including Zenobiusz Cerkiewicz and Jan Tarasin.

The centre of the gallery is filled with silver from Kalisz goldsmiths' workshops of the second quarter of the 19th century, including those of Johann Suck and Adam Czerwiński: sugar bowls, a teapot, a hot-water urn, cutlery and candlesticks. A crown from a painting of the Virgin Mary and a votive plaque have a place of their own.

In the adjoining print room, illuminated drawers display prints from the collection of Józef Antoni Leopold of Rzepiszew, decimated during the occupation, with likenesses of Polish rulers. Next to them are 19th-century views of the Kalisz market square, park and main buildings, including lithographs from the Kalisz Album of 1858 based on drawings by Stanisław Barcikowski. The remaining drawers hold drawings and prints by 20th-century artists connected with Kalisz, among them the Kościelniak brothers and Czesław Woś.