Opening hours: Closed Mondays and public holidays; open Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays 9am-4pm; Wednesdays 11am-6pm; Saturdays and Sundays 10am-5pm.
The National Ethnographical Museum of Warsaw is housed in the pre-war premises of the Landlords' Credit Society, built by architect Jozef Gorecki in 1853. Its neo-Renaissance elevation was designed by Henryk Marconi and executed in 1856-8 using Venice's New Procuratoria as a model.
The Museum was established by the Warsaw Zoological Garden in 1888. After the bombardment of its premises in 1939 and the total destruction of its holdings, the Museum was reactivated in 1947 and its premises rebuilt in 1962-72. Called the Museum of Folk Culture since 1955, it changed its name to the current one in 1964.
The Polish holdings, whose collecting was initiated in 1947, present Polish folk culture, and in particular: 1. material culture, including the pre-farming activities of gathering, hunting, fishing, as well as animal breeding; rural production activities: agriculture, transport and communications; crafts, displaying key tools and raw materials, such as wood, straw, wicker, clay and iron, and typical products made by coopers, wheel-makers, carpenters, potters, smiths and plait-makers; 2. weaving and costumes, notably Polish folk costumes dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and textiles; 3. art: sculpture, painting, graphics, paper cutouts, works by contemporary folk and "naive" artists, as well as the folklore, including family and annual rituals and interior decoration.
Among the European holdings the most comprehensive and consistent collections come from the areas of Eastern and Southern Europe, i.e. Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, the Ukraine, and Belarus.
First making their way to the Museum in 1947, the non-European holdings are particularly rich in African exhibits, including Dr Waclaw Korabiewicz's precious collection with a world-unique group of ritual Midimo masks from East Africa. The American holdings are particularly noted for a collection related to the Columbian Indians, brought by Przemyslaw Burchard, while the Asiatic collection boasts some valuable examples of edged weapons. There is also a beautiful Ethiopian collection.
Permanent exhibitions: "Polish Folk Culture: Agriculture, Farming and Crafts, Costumes and Textiles, Annual Rituals, and Art"; "The Culture of Non-European Peoples: Black Africa, Australia and Oceania, Latin and South America".
Państwowe Muzeum Etnograficzne w Warszawie
ul. Kredytowa 1
00-056 Warszawa
Region: mazowieckie
Phone: (+48 22) 827 76 41-46
Fax: (+48 22) 827 66 69
WWW: www.pme.waw.pl
Email: sekretariat@ethnomuseum.pl