National Museum in Warsaw
Photo: Own work — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The National Museum in Warsaw houses over 830,000 works of art, including ancient artifacts, Polish paintings, and applied arts, making it Poland’s largest art museum.
Planning your visit
The National Museum in Warsaw holds over 830,000 objects, and its most extraordinary holding was excavated by Poles in Sudan: the Faras Gallery, containing Nubian Christian wall paintings rescued from a cathedral before the Aswan dam flooded it in the 1960s. Nowhere outside Khartoum holds anything comparable.
The Polish painting galleries are the national canon — Matejko's enormous Battle of Grunwald, Malczewski's symbolism, the Young Poland generation — and they explain how art carried national identity through 123 years when the state did not exist.
European painting includes Cranach, Rembrandt school work and the Lanckoroński bequest with two Rembrandts.
Ancient, medieval, Oriental and applied art fill the rest, along with a design gallery covering the communist period.
The building of 1938 is monumental modernism. Allow three hours. Current availability is shown below.
Before you book
Where is National Museum in Warsaw?
National Museum in Warsaw is in Warsaw, Poland. The map on this page marks its exact location.
How long should I allow for National Museum in Warsaw?
Allow three hours. That is the time the collection itself takes at an unhurried pace, before any queue.
What are the opening hours of National Museum in Warsaw?
Monday closed. Hours change on public holidays, so check the official site before travelling.
Do I need to book National Museum in Warsaw in advance?
Private tours are arranged for a set date and time, so they need booking in advance.
