Czartoryscy: “Be What Be” — and we as a Family do what belongs to Us

The owners of museum collections, after years of collecting collections at the end of their lives, always faced the legal dilemma of securing them against dispersal. At the beginning and at the end of the 19th century, the Czartoryski family faced a double problem in the situation of partitioning — the fair distribution of assets and the preservation of the entire museum and library collection located on Polish lands and in France. In these activities, reference was made to the legal status known for centuries that existed in Europe — it was an ordination also called majorate. It was intended to protect the property status of individual heirs and to protect the accumulated works of art, archives and book collections from dispersal. All family, legal and property activities carried out in harmony brought complete success in the years 1885-1945. Thanks to these efforts, today in the buildings of the Museum and Library we can admire the treasures of Polish and European art and experience tangibly the heritage accumulated by many generations of the Czartoryski family.

Janusz Nowak