Postcards with a view of the Castle
3 October 2023 – 7 January 2024
New Deputies’s Chamber
The exhibition is available as part of the Royal Route ticket
A postcard is not only a souvenir of a journey, it is also a sign of the times - a form of recording places or events of particular importance to a community. We would like to invite you to a unique journey in time, an exhibition of historical postcards thematically related to the Royal Castle in Warsaw - depicting its structure, interiors and immediate surroundings and revealing often surprising details.
The exhibition features more than 300 postcards from the Archives of the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The postcards are grouped thematically and chronologically: the body and interiors of the Castle, the Tin-Roofed Palace, the Castle Square, Nowy Zjazd (now Aleja Solidarności), Krakowskie Przedmieście and the panoramas, which makes it possible to follow the changes taking place, e.g. in buildings or transport.
An additional idea was to show the variety of postcards in terms of aesthetics, technical quality or faithfulness of reproduction, which is achieved, among other things, by comparing the same views in different editions. The postcards show the appearance of the Castle from the late 19th century to the present day. The exhibition also outlines the history of the postcard.
In addition to individual postcards, there are also 18 sets in the collection. Only a few copies were purchased, the vast majority are donations, which also makes this exhibition unique.
The layout, subject matter and quality of the postcards are a testament to the tastes and technical capabilities of the publishers and the needs of the public. Some of the postcards in the collections remain unsigned, but some contain correspondence that can be an interesting source of information about everyday and unusual matters.
An additional attraction for visitors to the exhibition, planned for December 2023, is the opportunity to compose their own electronic postcard based on a photograph taken on site with the Castle in the background. It will be a unique souvenir of the visit.
Curator of the exhibition: Joanna Czupryńska
Author of the exhibition design: Piotr Kubiak
