The story
The National Museum in Wrocław stands on the bank of the Oder in a heavy brick building that once housed the Prussian provincial government, back when the city was German Breslau. After 1945 the borders shifted, the Germans left, Poles arrived from the east, and a new Polish museum was assembled partly from the art that survived the war in the region.
Its great strength is medieval Silesian art, rooms full of stone and painted wooden sculpture from the churches of Lower Silesia, including a Throne of Grace panel from around 1350. Upstairs the story turns Polish, with big historical canvases and portraits by names like Jan Matejko and Jacek Malczewski. The museum also runs the Racławice Panorama nearby, a vast 360-degree battle painting housed in its own purpose-built rotunda.
