The Sukiennice stands at the centre of the Main Market Square, a long arcaded hall that has served as Krakow's principal trading exchange since medieval times. The present building dates from the 16th century, rebuilt in Italian Renaissance style by the architect Giovanni Maria Mosca after a fire, with the characteristic Gothic gables added in the 19th century. For centuries, the ground-floor stalls sold textiles and luxury goods to merchants from across Europe.
Today the arcades still function as a market, selling amber jewelry, folk art, chess sets, and crafts — it is touristy but not entirely without interest, and the amber selection is among the best in Poland. The first floor houses the Sukiennice Museum (a branch of the National Museum), which holds Poland's finest collection of 19th-century painting: large-scale history paintings by Jan Matejko hang alongside the delicate society portraits of Henryk Rodakowski and the Symbolist canvases of Jacek Malczewski. The collection is modest in size but excellent in quality, and the museum tends to be far less crowded than the main Wawel sights.