Lady with an Ermine
Czartoryski has given his first interview since July's surprise sacking of the entire board of one Poland's most hallowed cultural institutions – the Czartoryski Foundation, the collections of which include Leonardo's
Lady with an Ermine.
Explaining his decision to fire the erstwhile board, which was led by his cousin, historian Count Adam Zamoyski, the prince told the Gazeta Krakowska daily that “the reason was simple.”
According to Czartoryski, “there was no transparency in the operations of the board.”
The prince claims that “the council of the Foundation, which I chaired, was not completely informed about the doings of the board, or we heard about matters selectively, or post factum.”
Prince Czartoryski lives mainly in Madrid, as his family left Poland during World War II. His first cousin is King Juan Carlos.
The foundation's main showpiece, The Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, has been in the throes of a major revamp over the last year and a half, although it has been racked by funding problems.
Since the collections were regained by Prince Czartoryski in 1991 following the collapse of communism, the museum has been co-administered by the National Museum.
However, Count Adam Zamoyski, who was relieved of his position in July, told Polish Radio that the new arrangement, which saw a replacement board largely composed of staff from the National Museum, signalled “almost a renationalisation of the one truly private collection in Poland... a two hundred year-old museum that had managed to keep its autonomy.”
As acknowledged by Czartoryski, a contributing element in his decision to oust the former board was its opposition to a donation that he made to the Wawel Royal Castle Museum in Krakow.
“What happened at Wawel marked the beginning of the road that led to the end of cooperation with the previous board,” he said.
Last December, Czartoryski donated a Byzantine reliquary to the castle, although the erstwhile board claimed he was not entitled to do so.
Asked why he would not come to live in Poland full-time, the 71-year-old prince told Gazeta Krakowska that age was the critical factor.
“I started to come to Poland regularly in the 1980s, when I was already at quite an advanced age. Now I come here often, but for such a radical change in my life it is already too late.” (nh/pg)