The National Museum at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, in cooperation with the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts in Krakow (Biblioteka Naukowa PAU i PAN w Krakowie), presents the International Exhibition of Engravings From the Creation of the World to the Apocalypse', which is devoted to the largest and most important collection of engravings in the Central and Eastern European region. The Graphic Room of the Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts, which opened in 1935, brought together two invaluable collections of graphic works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The first part of the collection was made up of the collection of the Moszyński family, the noble family of the Republic of the Two Nations. The main contributor to the collection was Fryderyk Józef Moszyński (1738-1817), a member of the Seimas of the Republic of the Two Nations, Grand Chamberlain of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Grand Referendary and Grand Secretary, and the last Grand Marshal of the Kingdom of Poland, and the last Grand Marshal of the Kingdom of Poland, who amassed the bulk of the collection during the reign of the Polish King and the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski (1764-1795). The second part of the collection of the Graphic Cabinet was transferred from the Polish Library in Paris, which was established in exile. A large part of it was made up of prints by Maciej Wodziński (1782-1848), a Polish emigre living in Dresden, a participant in the Napoleonic Wars, and the President of the Polish Senate at the time of the 1831 Uprising. The Cabinet of Prints operated independently for only a relatively short period of time, from 1935 to 1939 and from 1945 to 1953, but it is significant that the works survived the hardships of the Second World War. After the end of the war, the collection was considerably enriched with works by old European masters and was incorporated into the structure of the library of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Arts in Krakow. Today, the Graphic Cabinet of the Polish Library of Sciences and Arts in Krakow contains more than 90,000 magnificent and valuable works of old prints created by the most famous artists in almost all the centres of European printmaking: Nuremberg, Antwerp, Rome, Paris, London, Dresden.
The part of the collection presented in the Palace Museum recalls not only the complex history of the collection, but also represents works of extremely high artistic value. With the invention of the printing press in the mid-15th century, printmaking became an art form that was among the first to reflect the latest knowledge about the world. In addition, the wide-ranging interests and hobbies of the early collectors of prints led to a wide variety of themes in the works, which told the whole story of the world as seen and understood by the Old Masters. Images based on the Bible and ancient mythology reflected the themes that were admired in the 15th and 18th centuries. Allegorical language was then used to explain the phenomena of the world - the passage of time, impermanence, the laws of nature and the inseparability of man and nature. These themes are also reflected in the international exhibition of engravings "From the Creation of the World to the Apocalypse" at the Palace Museum, where more than 200 engravings are on display. The five thematic sections - "The Biblical World", "The World of Mythology and Antiquity", "The World as Allegory", "The World Explored and Domesticated", "The End of the World" - tell the story of mankind and the heavenly, earthly, animal and plant worlds that surround it, and present dramatic visions of the end of the world, using often intertwined biblical and mythological motifs.
It is also unique that the old prints in the International Print Exhibition are not only presented according to themes, but most of them are exhibited in whole series, of which there are 27 in total. Such series are of great interest to collectors and have a very high value on the world art market. The multi-faceted nature of the series provides an excellent opportunity to take a broader look at the artists' work and to develop the themes of the works. The exhibition includes works by Martin Schongauer (c.1450-1491), Peter Brueghel (c.1450-1491), Peter Brueghel de Oude, c. 1525-1569), Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), Philip Galle (1537-1612) and others depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary, Sts. Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) created graphic works based on St. John the Baptist and St. John the Baptist, the events of the life of Jesus Christ, and the personifications of the seven great sins. Dürer's paintings of St John's visions of the end of the world. Alongside them are works by Giovanio Jacopo Caraglio (Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio, c. 1500-1565), a jeweller from Verona who worked for several years at the court of the Polish-Lithuanian ruler, Sigismund Augustus (1529/1544-1572), in Vilnius, and Sebald Beham (1500-1550), a jeweller from Verona, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Giovanio Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), Antique and the Ancient World, Adriaen Collaert (c. 1560-1618) engravings on the animal world. The Italian artist Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780) is also a major focus, depicting images of Dresden, the birthplace of the Polish and Lithuanian rulers Augustus II (1697-1704, 1709-1733) and Augustus III (1733-1763). Many of the artists featured in the exhibition have paintings and prints that have graced the historical art collections of the rulers of Lithuania and Poland, especially the Jogailaitis and the Vasa dynasties, and prints were used to create cobblers for the palace furnaces and other works of applied art.
Old 16th-18th century prints are rarely shown at exhibitions due to their fragile nature and sensitivity to the environment. The exhibition at the Palace Museum is therefore an extraordinary opportunity to get acquainted with the magnificent and internationally renowned works of famous printmakers, a rare and diverse part of the printmaking heritage, and to immerse oneself in the rich world of European engravings, which leads through the development of art, history and culture.