Norblin Czartoryski in the collection of the Vinnitsa District Museum

Jan Piotr Norblin de la Gourdaine (1745 -1830), French painter and draughtsman, had a long association with Poland.

He spent around 30 years in our country, the most creative years of his life. He painted on commission for aristocrats and King Stanislaus Augustus, and later also ran his own studio in Warsaw. He is considered the father of Polish genre painting, immortalising important events for Poland which he witnessed (the Great Seym, the 3rd of May Constitution, the Kościuszko Insurrection), as well as scenes from the life of various social classes. His art is not only a valuable document of those times, but also a testimony to the author’s high artistic mastery.

The Norblin Czartoryski exhibition consists of around 250 works from various periods of the artist’s oeuvre, forming part of a vast collection of drawings held by the princely family and later divided among the individual heirs.

Norblin’s drawings are an excellent supplement to the history lessons on the decline of the First Republic and the attempts to save the state, as well as to the Polish language on the culture and art of the Enlightenment.