The Kraków Salt Works Museum in Wieliczka

ul. Zamkowa 8,
32-020 Wieliczka

phone 12 278 32 66
phone 12 422 19 47
Fax 12 278 58 49
page museum

How to get there :

on foot

by car

Opening hours

May — September

Monday

closed

Tuesday — Sunday

9.00 — 20.00

October — April

Monday

closed

Tuesday — Sunday

8.30 — 15.30

Ticket Prices

normal 8 PLN reduced 5 PLN family 15 PLN Saturday — free admission

Glass salt shaker by Louis Comfort Tiffany

This Art Nouveau dish, in the form of a bowl with a wavy irregular collar, is a very delicate and fragile object. It was handmade from glass blown on an iron rod, the so-called punty. At the bottom of the salt shaker, there is a grounded star sign visible after the cut off of the punty. Next to it, there are L. C. T. signs indicating the artist.

Painting “St. Kinga praying in the mountains” by Jan Matejko

Normal 0 21 false false false PL X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:Standardowy; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman","serif"; border:none;}St. Kinga was presented in art in two ways – as a young person in a rich princess’s costume or as an older nun in the Poor Clare habit. Jan Matejko made a deliberate statement of both conventions and portrayed St. Kinga at the age of around 60, in the princess’s robe and with attributes referring to her life at the Poor Clares Monastery (prayer book, crosier, view of the Monastery in Stary Sącz). The model for the character was Countess Katarzyna Adamowa Potocka, known from another portrait painted by Matejko – this time in a contemporary outfit.

Painting “Guardian Angel”

The picture was painted with oils on a wooden board. On the background of a landscape with a low horizon, two figures are depicted: a Guardian Angel and a child which he leads by holding its hand.

Wooden cassette with triptych by Józef Mehoffer

This consists of a wooden cassette, iron-shod with brass, with a two-winged hinged lid, a brass shield at the front, with “WIELICZKA” and a crown at the top. It contains a document granting honorary citizenship of the city of Wieliczka to Doctor Kazimierz Junosza-Gałecki.

Hungarian-style horse mill

The Hungarian-style horse mill was the best machine for the vertical transportation of salt. It was able to lift loads that weighed over 2 tonnes from a depth greater than 300 m. It was an improved version of the Saxon-style horse mill implemented by Austrians after the First Partition of Poland. Since 1861 it was replaced by steam engines and after 1913 by electrical machines.

Horse mill

Because of the fact that in the salt mines of the Kraków region, i.e. salt mines in Wieliczka and Bochnia, salt lies deep underground, it was excavated through shafts by using the right tools, like devices with a horizontal drive shaft (windlass), handwheels, treadwheels (internal and external), devices with a vertical drive shaft (cross, water-mill), devices with a vertical-horizontal drive shaft (gear mill with a winding reel, gear mill with two winding reels, gear mill with a brake drum) and braking devices.

Salt block

The basic method for moulding the salt bed in the Wieliczka mine was to tear it out with the use of iron wedges; the cuboid blocks were then treated and transformed into barrel shapes or a cylinder for trading purposes. Those blocks were the main product of salt mines in the region of Kraków for six centuries — from the second half of the 13...

Oil mining lamp

The earliest source of confirmation regarding use of oil lamps in the Wieliczka Mine dates back to the beginning of the 16th century, but there are no exact data on the shape and material from which they were made. Probably, two types of oil lamps were used: clay – to be held in the hand or adapted to be placed on a flat surface; and metal – with a hook for carrying and hanging, connected with a container for tallow. The shapes of both types are similar – pear-shaped and vertical.

Candlestick with a kneeling angel

This is a polychrome wooden sculpture depicting a kneeling angel with a candlestick in his left hand. The figure is dressed in a long dark green tunic and a brown coat. The sculpture was found in the destroyed chapel of St. Kunegunda on Boczaniec, on the 1st level of the Wieliczka Salt Mine.

Strongbox

A safe for storing the salt company’s accounting documents is the heaviest and largest exhibit at the Wieliczka Salt Works Castle and one of its few original items that has been preserved to our times. It was purchased by the Wieliczka Salt Mine Board in January of 1910 in Lviv. The well-known manufacturer put the labels with its name on the safe’s top and close to the internal fixing of the lock: “C. K. Uprzywilejowana pierwsza krajowa Fabryka Kas Ogniotrwałych W. Kosiba & W. Chudzikowski Lwów” (The First Imperial and Royal Authorised National Factory of Fireproof Strongboxes W. Kosiba & W. Chudzikowski, Lviv).

Salt cellar in the shape of an elongated cup

This silver salt shaker, in the shape of an elongated bowl, which is decorated at the edge with an openwork strip of plants, is the work of a high-class goldsmith. It was made in France in pre-revolutionary times, in Paris in the years 1786–1787, by the goldsmith, Jean-Baptiste-François Chéret. The precise determination of the authorship, time, and place of the creation of this work is possible thanks to the marking, which, in the past, was to testify the occurrence of precious metal, and nowadays is the source of information about the history of the object; its interpretation, however, often requires detective work.

Chinese porcelain salt shaker

The presented salt shaker is an example of early white-blue pottery, which is decorated with cobalt blue. It is a rare form of Far Eastern porcelain imported to Europe. The object has come a long way to the collection of the Wieliczka Museum, because it was made in China during the Kangxi period (1662–1722).

Silver salt cellar with a figure of a boy pushing the sled

This silver salt shaker, in the shape of a boy pushing a sled, is actually a miniature sculpture. It evokes admiration for the precision of the 19th century artist from Frankfurt, who, in the microscopic scale of a few centimeters, was able to develop numerous, intricate details and decorations.

Porcelain salt cellar with a figure of black woman with a basket

This is a figurine-shaped porcelain salt shaker with a container for salt. A very decorative figure of black woman with a basket was created in the oldest European porcelain workshop in Meissen, near Dresden. It was made according to the model developed by Johann Friedrich Eberlein in 1741.

Silver, round salt shaker, on three volute stems

This valuable product of artistic handicraft is a silver and gold-plated salt shaker – an example of Baroque goldsmithing from Augsburg – which was one of the most important European gold smithery centres.

Parade miner’s sabre

Carrying weapons was a privilege of miners as free people. Salt Works introduced uniforms for their employees in 1773. A sabre was an important element of the outfit and later also the mining uniform. Parade weapons are a special type of weapon that have almost lost their utilitarian functions in favour of representational ones.

Miner’s axe

The parade miner’s axe inlaid with a bone base. The shaft ornamented with inlay in the form of plates with plant and geometrical motifs. The miner’s emblem (crossed hammers) and the inscription “17 DS 01” engraved on the base, on the other side there is the coat of arms of the Elector of Saxony.

Horn of Salt Diggers Brotherhood of Wieliczka

The horn of Salt Diggers Brotherhood of Wieliczka is a unique Renaissance work of art commemorating the past wealth of Kraków salt mines. It is the only historical object of such preserved in Poland — the genuine horn of an aurochs (the species that became extinct in Poland in the 17th century, the ancestor of cattle), precisely framed in silver embedded in various golden ornaments.

Cooper’s guid chest

The chest is made of oak, with inlaid work made of ash. The inlaid work presents two angels, and between them there is a wooden bathtub (on the lid) and two mallets, callipers, and an axe (on the front wall). There are metal handles on the sides of the chest, and, in the middle, there is a compartment for guild privileges.

Salt sculpture “St. Barbara”

The sculpture was carved in green salt and represents Saint Barbara. The figure stands on a cubic pedestal.

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