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From Library Journal
The catalog of an exhibition organized by the Milwaukee Art Museum that will travel to Houston and San Francisco from December 2002 to May 2003, this book surveys the history of art collecting in Poland since the Renaissance. Edited by Winters, the museum's European art curator, it includes essays by Polish curators and art historians that outline the collecting of Polish and non-Polish art, always in the context of Polish history and geography (and helped by excellent maps). With the disappearance of Poland from the map of Europe in the late 18th century, art, language, religion, and culture became the means of keeping the nation alive. About half the works discussed are Polish (largely 19th- and 20th-century) and will be unfamiliar to many readers; the remainder are European works collected by Polish nobility or royalty, also largely unfamiliar because they are less published than materials in Western collections (with a few exceptions, such as da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine). This work is different enough in scope and content from a 1999 exhibition catalog, Land of the Winged Horsemen: Art in Poland, 1572-1764, to merit inclusion in public as well as academic collections. Jack Perry Brown, Art Inst. of Chicago Lib.

Book Description

This stunning book presents a dazzling array of Western European and Polish paintings from Poland's most important national and private museums. A testimony to the remarkable history of collecting and patronage in Poland, the book showcases Leonardo da Vinci's magnificent Lady with an Ermine (Portrait of Cecilia Gallerani), but also includes important works by Hans Memling, Jusepe de Ribera, Bernardo Bellotto, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Marie-Louise Elizabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Johann Friedrich Overbeck, and others.

The book also brings to light Poland's long-overlooked cultural history. Prominent scholars describe the royal patronage responsible for acquiring great works of art throughout the Renaissance and Enlightenment; they discuss the impact on Poland's art collections when the country lost its independence in 1795 and was then partitioned geographically; and they tell the story of the cultural and political oppression that culminated in the radical dismantling of collections and museums during Nazi and then Soviet rule. The authors note that the museums of Poland are now retrieving their collections and redefining themselves within a reconfigured Europe, giving us a new appreciation of the country's impressive artistic identity.

Leonardo da Vinci and the Splendor of Poland accompanies an exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum (September 12-November 24, 2002); The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (December 8, 2002-February 16, 2003); and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco/California Palace of the Legion of Honor (March 8-May 18, 2003).