Rogalin Picture Gallery

On the east wall of the largest room, where an altar would stand in a church, hangs "The Maid of Orleans" – Jan Matejko's largest painting. That was the plan of Edward Aleksander Raczyński, who in 1910 gave his collection its own publicly accessible "temple of art". The Rogalin Picture Gallery is a separate building within the Rogalin Palace Museum, a branch of the National Museum in Poznań, with more than 250 paintings from around 1900.

The collector and his gallery

Edward Aleksander Raczyński, a connoisseur and long-serving president of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts in Kraków, bought paintings from the 1880s to the 1920s. He built up one of the finest collections of contemporary painting in the Polish lands, numbering almost 500 works. From the start he wanted a building open to the public: he commissioned the first designs from Stanisław Borecki as early as 1896.

In the end the gallery was built in 1910 to a modernist design by Mieczysław Powidzki. It is lit from above through glass roofs on a steel frame made by the H. Cegielski works in Poznań, and from outside it resembles a temple. It stands below the palace's south wing so as not to compete with the residence: visitors came in from the garden and park, while the family and their guests entered from the south annexe.

What to see

Of the pre-war collection, 305 works survive, and 297 are on display in the gallery. The hang was reconstructed from a gallery guide of around 1926 and archive photographs, so you see it as Raczyński arranged it – with paintings hung in two, three or even four rows, in the 19th-century manner.

• The entrance hall with a large group of realist works by the Polish "Munich school" painters.
• The last and largest room with Matejko's "Maid of Orleans" and the best-known symbolist canvases of Jacek Malczewski.
• Works by Aleksander Gierymski, Władysław Podkowiński, Olga Boznańska, Julian Fałat and Leon Wyczółkowski, as well as paintings by foreign artists of the period.

Did you know?

Raczyński arranged the gallery himself – an archive photograph from around 1911 shows him and his wife Róża hanging the pictures. Matejko painted Joan of Arc in a strongly religious scene, which is why this canvas plays the part of the gallery's "altarpiece". Some works from the pre-war collection were lost in the war, and some paintings by Polish artists are at times shown in the main building of the National Museum in Poznań.

Tripto tip

• Opening hours (as of October 2026): the museum is open Tuesday to Sunday 9:00–16:00 and closed on Mondays; the ticket office is open 8:30–15:30 (weekends in July and August 9:30–16:30), with a break from 12:30 to 12:45.
• The daily number of palace tickets is limited, so the museum recommends buying online and planning ahead. Check current prices and ticket options at mnp.art.pl.
• Allow at least 45 minutes for the gallery alone; with the palace, coach house, garden and the famous Rogalin oaks, plan half a day.
• Free parking is along road 431 and behind the shop on ul. Poznańska; paid parking is by the historic chestnut avenue. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
• Address: ul. Arciszewskiego 2, 62-022 Rogalin, tel. +48 61 81 38 800.