Government Has Bought
the Czartoryski Museum.
Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting, Lady with an
Ermine, has changed hands together with the
entire collections of
The
Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow. Until
recently the property of The Princes Czartoryski
Foundation, they have been sold to the Polish
government for euro 100 million, a fraction of an
estimated value, on December 29th, 2016. The deal
includes some 86,000 museum pieces and about 250,000
books and manuscripts as well as the buildings of
The Czartoryski Museum and The Czartoryski Library,
both situated in the historic center of Krakow. Upon
the occasion Poland’s Minister of Culture and
National Heritage, Mr. Piotr Glinski, promised quick
completion of the stalled modernization of The
Czartoryski Museum and its long overdue reopening
–as a branch of the
Krakow
National Museum which is to own its collections
from now on. For the meantime. Leonardo's
Lady with an
Ermine
will be exhibited in the National Museum's
main building at 1, 3 Maja street.
21 More on the World
Heritage List.
The UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee, meeting in
Krakow July 2nd to July 12th, added 21 new sites to
its list of mankind’s dearest treasures. Three of
the are nature wonders, namely Argentina’s Los
Alerces National Park, China’s Qinghai Hoh Xil, and
Landscapes of Dauria in Mongolia and the Russian.
Eighteen new cultural sites the committee has voted
in Krakow as the World Heritage are Angola’s
Mbanza Kongo: Vestiges of the Capital of the former
Kingdom of Kongo, Brazil’s Valongo Wharf
Archaeological Site, Cambodia’s Temple Zone
of Sambor Prei Kuk: Archaeological Site of Ancient
Ishanapura, China’s Kulangsu: a Historic
International Settlement, the Venetian Works
of Defence between 16th and 17th centuries: Stato da
Terra – western Stato da Mar in Croatia, Italy,
and Montenegro, Denmark’s Kujataa Greenland:
Norse and Inuit Farming at the Edge of the Ice Cap,
Eritrea’s Asmara: a Modernist City of Africa,
France’s Taputapuatea (French Polynesia), Germany’s
Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura,
India’s Historic City of Ahmadabad, Iran’s
Historic City of Yazd, Japan’s Sacred Island
of Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata
Region, Hebron/Al-Khalil Old Town in
Palestine, Poland’s Tarnowskie Gory
Lead-Silver-Zinc Mine and Its Underground Water
Management System, Russia’s Assumption
Cathedral and Monastery of the Town-island of
Sviyazhsk, South Africa’s Khomani Cultural
Landscape, Turkey’s Aphrodisias, and the United
Kingdom’s The English Lake District. The
Krakow conference also enlarged the area of four
already listed sites and decreased one. The
separate List of World Heritage in Danger has got
two new items, i.e. The Historic Centre of Vienna
in Austria and The Site of Hebron/Al-Khalil Old
Town in Palestine.
The Czartoryski Museum
Abridged.
Krakow’s famed Czartoryski Museum will reopen, fingers
crossed, in December 2019. But in the meantime the
public can see its most valuable items on a temporary
show in adjacent Arsenal. The exhibition, called “Most
Valuable. The Princes Czartoryski Collection.”
displays such gems as Rembrandt’s ‘Landscape with the
Good Samaritan’ and Lucas Cranach’s portraits of
Polish royalty. Yet the museum’s crown jewel, Leonardo’s
“Lady with an Ermine’, remains exhibited
separately – in the main hall of the Krakow National
Museum at 3 Maja street from May 19th, 2017. Meant as a
cross-section of the Czartoryski collections, the show
contains not only works of art but also rare
antiquities, memorabilia connected with great men and
Polish history, documents, and ancient decorative and
functional art. The exhibition is to stay open till
April 8, 2018. The building of the city arsenal of the
16th century stands opposite the main body of the
Czartoryski Museum, across Pijarska street, and has been
an annex to it since 1876, housing initially the
Czartoryski Library and next, from 1975, the museum’s
collection of antiquities.
Cracovia Krakow, the Ice Champ
Krakow’s ice hockey team, ComArch Cracovia aka
Cracovia Krakow, has won Poland’s
championship for season 2016/2017, the second time
in row. In total the club has held twelve
titles since 1937 when it prevailed for the first
time. In 2006 Cracovia celebrated its centenary as the
club’s football team played its first match in 1906.
World Heritage Deliberated in Krakow.
The 41st session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee takes place in Krakow from July 2nd to July 12th, 2017. Following the opening ceremony at the Wawel Royal Castle, the proceedings go on in the ICE conference center at 17 Konopnickiej street and Monte Cassino street. Among other matters delegates of the Committee’s 21 member states are to evaluate 34 new sites nominated for listing as the UNESCO World Heritage. Other participants include delegations of some 190 countries, signatories of the UNESCO convention on the world heritage and the affiliated organizations. The main conference is accompanied by a number of accompanying events. In 2018 Krakow will celebrated the 40th anniversary of its inclusion in the list of the UNESCO World Heritage.
Euro 2017 U-21
Championship in Krakow.
Krakow co-hosts Euro 2017 Under-21 football championship
in the second half of June, together with five other
Polish cities. Besides Poland eleven national teams
qualified, all players aged 21 years or younger. The
Krakow venue is Stadion Cracovia stadium, situated just
a ten minutes’ walk from Rynek Glowny central
square. It has been chosen for the final on June 30th,
2017 as well as one of semifinals on June 27th. Earlier
– on June 18th, June 21st, and June 24th – the Krakow
stadium is to host matches of Group C which consists of
Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark, and Italy.
