It was an era of dynamic change, new discoveries and the birth of science as we know it today. The university professors themselves often amassed collections for research purposes, carried out analysis and classified the materials available, while at the same time passing on their acquired knowledge to the students.

It is these surviving elements of the artistic and scientific collections amassed in cabinets that now constitute the basis of the exhibition of the University of Warsaw Museum. Among the invaluable artefacts, in addition to the paintings, engravings and plaster casts of statues, there are medical instruments, coins and seal dies, specimens of animals and plants, as well as other rare objects such as a model of the Arch of Constantine in Rome made from cork board.

All these objects could be found at the University during the years when Fryderyk Chopin lived on the campus, as a student of the Main Music School of the department of Science and Fine Arts.