Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski (L) and Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski (R): photo - PAP/Jacek Turczyk
The prince signed the document on Thursday together with Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski.
The act appears to settle several years of uncertainty surrounding Krakow's Museum of the Czartoryski Princes, which is currently in the throes of a major refurbishment and extension project.
Besides thousands of treasures relating to Polish heritage, the museum is noted in the art world as the owner of Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, one of the few extant paintings by the Italian master.
According to Thursday's letter, the museum will be jointly managed by the Foundation of the Czartoryski Princes and the Ministry of Culture, thus ending over sixty years involvement with the National Museum 's Krakow branch.
The museum collections were confiscated by Poland's communist authorities following the Second World War, and the institution was subsumed into the National Museum, while remaining in its pre-war home.
Prince Adam Karol Czartoryski, who grew up in exile in Spain, won the collections back in a 1991 court case following the fall of the Iron Curtain.
However, an agreement allowed for the museum to be co-administrated by the National Museum.
“It is important to remember that these are private collections, the creation of which was launched over two hundred years ago by Princess Izabela Czartoryska,” the prince stated yesterday, as cited by the Polish Press Agency.
Minister Zdrojewski claimed that the divorce with the National Museum will ensure that from a legal standpoint, the collection remains undivided.
“There was no way to do this within the sphere of the National Museum.” Zdrojewski said.
Nevertheless, the minister thanked the National Museum for it's role over the last 62 years, emphasizing that the institution should be commended for the care it has shown in looking after the collections.
Wrangles concerning funds for the current renovation of the museum and loans of the Leonardo painting abroad (both the renovation and the loans were championed by the Czartoryski Foundation itself) had been controversial in Poland's art world, with the National Museum opposing the lending of the painting.
The new agreement would last for fifty years, beginning in January 2013. (nh)