Jan Matejko (1838-1893) was Poland's most important history painter, whose enormous canvases depicting battles, coronations, and key moments in Polish history shaped how generations of Poles visualized their past. He lived and worked in this house on Ulica Floriańska for most of his life, and it is now preserved as a museum showing his living quarters, studio, and a collection of the sketches, props, and historical objects he accumulated as research for his paintings.
The house gives a vivid sense of Matejko's working methods — the studio is vast, necessarily so for a painter whose canvases can be ten metres wide, and the accumulated props (suits of armour, weapons, costumes) speak to the painstaking historical research that underpinned his theatrical compositions. For those who have already seen his paintings in the Sukiennice Museum or in the many public buildings across Poland where his work hangs, the house provides the context. The Floriańska Street location also makes it an easy stop on any walk between the Florian Gate and the Main Square.