Art and Trade. Krakow of Craftsmen

From the 14th century Krakow’s craftsmen were organised in guilds, and the city granted them priority access to materials and a monopoly on production - in exchange for arming the towers and defending the walls. The exhibition at the Krzysztofory Palace traces that bargain: the workshop, the professional career, and the vivid ritual life of the guild.

The Museum of Krakow on the exhibition (translated from the museum’s Polish description; the museum’s English page carries visitor information only):

The Museum of Krakow invites you to an exhibition that opens up the world of Krakow’s craftsmen of the past. It is about the mutual influence between the city and the members of this large group of residents, of widely varying means.

Seeing its own growth in a strong crafts sector, the city sought to guarantee craftsmen - organised in guilds from the 14th century - priority access to materials and exclusive rights to production and sale within Krakow. Care was taken over the quality of training and of the goods produced, which were the city’s calling card. In return, craftsmen were obliged to arm the towers and defend the city in times of danger. After compulsory guild membership was abolished in 1859, the staff of the Museum of Technology and Industry worked to raise the standard of craft training in Krakow, Father Mieczysław Kuznowicz founded the Union of Industrial and Handicraft Youth, and in 1927 the Chamber of Crafts was established.

On display are objects associated with Krakow’s craftsmen from the 15th to the 20th century, with an emphasis on the early modern period, focusing on trades rarely shown in exhibitions: joiners, cutlers, pewterers, and the women who made artificial flowers. Visitors can look into the workshop of a 16th-century potter from Garbary, see 18th-century work by the Krakow clockmakers Jan Jakub Lichty and Johann Gottfried Krosz, and examine 19th-century gingerbread moulds from the firm of Antoni Rothe, whose specialities the people of Krakow relished.

What to expect

The exhibition runs through eight sections: the successive stages of a craft career (The Guild; From Apprentice to Master; In the Workshop), the guild as an organisation with judicial and electoral functions (At the Meeting and in the Inn), the control of materials, measures, weights and sales limits, guilds as religious confraternities, public appearances of craftsmen under their banners (Processions and Parades), and finally the part craftsmen played in the history of the city and the nation. Welcome cups, masterpieces, guild chests, banners and elaborately decorated diplomas are among the objects shown. Interviews with today’s Krakow craftsmen close the narrative.

Children are guided through the display by Trudzia the mouse, with a task sheet to organise what they learn. The exhibition is accompanied by an education programme - lectures, workshops and walks for different age groups, including visitors with visual and hearing impairments - plus a catalogue and a children’s book.

Tickets, opening hours, and current details are on the Museum of Krakow website.

Museum profile: Krzysztofory Palace - Museum of Krakow.