The Museum of the University of Warsaw has several thousand items of which only a small part can be displayed at any one time with the remaining portion available through a web page devoted to the Museum’s collection.
The key object of the “The Eagle and the five stars of the University” exhibition is the silver eagle on a navy blue field decorating the University of Warsaw flag made in 1917. Some of the most interesting artifacts within the Dining Hall of the Tyszkiewicz-Potocki Palace include plaster busts of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki and Stanislaw Staszic, the founding fathers of the school, as well as the portrait of Henryk Sienkiewicz, an alumnus of the UofW.
Another valuable element constituting the exhibition are the engraved prints from a collection once owned by the king and which need to be periodically rotated (in consideration for their conservation). The plaster cast of the sculpture of the Faun with a goat kid and the cork model of the Arch of Constantine testify to the fascination with the art of antiquity.
The Museum’s collection also contains numerous items illustrating the everyday life at the University such as seals, badges, diplomas, students’ credit books, medals, rectors’ and professors’ insignia, manuscripts and scientific instruments used in experiments. A valuable document within the collection is the student’s credit book belonging to Czeslaw Milosz, a student of law at the UofW.
The photo archives which are a separate department of the Museum contain over ten thousand pictures illustrating the fascinating but sometimes dramatic history of the University of Warsaw. These are a wonderful record of the school’s history.
The Museum of the University of Warsaw is continuously gathering new works of art as well as historical documents for its collection. Some of these acquisitions come from donors and others are purchased on the antiquarian market and at auctions.
