Collection
Description of the Collection of the State Museum of Ethnography in Warsaw
The African collection comprises over 11,700 objects originating from the African continent. It includes primarily items related to the cultures and communities of Sub-Saharan Africa. Particularly well represented are materials from East Africa, the Gulf of Guinea region, and the territory of today’s Democratic Republic of the Congo. The collection features a wide range of objects, including craftwork, tools, and everyday utensils, clothing, and adornments (including ceremonial items), weapons (spears, bows, arrows, daggers, and shields), ritual objects (mainly masks, reliquaries, fetishes, and ancestor figures), musical instruments, and artworks such as sculptures and paintings. A significant portion of the collection consists of objects from Ethiopia, including crosses and manuscripts dating from the late nineteenth century. Cultures of North Africa are represented to a lesser extent. Particularly noteworthy are items associated with Tuareg culture, such as shields, spears, saddles, and paintings.
The American collection comprises nearly 5,000 items, including both archaeological and ethnographic objects. It is a varied collection, representative mainly in specific categories, such as the Mexican collection, which includes artworks and craft objects, ritual items, clothing, and domestic utensils. Also significant is the monographic collection from the Central Andes (mainly Peru and Bolivia), documenting Quechua communities, as well as items from Amazonia (Venezuela, Ecuador), illustrating the cultures of the tropical forests. Indigenous cultures of Canada and the United States are represented to a lesser degree, for example, through Inuit walrus-ivory sculptures, whimsies — souvenir objects from the Niagara Falls region — and kachina dolls from the south-western USA. The archaeological collection includes ceramic objects from Mexico and the Andes, as well as textile fragments from the Chancay and Chimu cultures.
The Asian collection consists of almost 5,000 objects that are culturally and geographically diverse, though not evenly representative of all Asian regions. Most numerous are the objects from today’s India, China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Japan, Korea, and Indonesia. Thematically, the collection includes arms and armour (swords, spears, knives), objects associated with ritual and religious practice (masks, vessels, amulets), craft and art (vessels, woodcuts, lacquered items), elements of dress and jewellery, as well as everyday utensils and souvenir objects. Of particular note is the collection of musical instruments, which includes aerophones, membranophones, idiophones, and chordophones — flutes, drums, rattles, bells, lutes, and even pigeon whistles.
The European collection encompasses most European countries as well as territories of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that, after 1945, found themselves outside Poland’s borders. A significant portion is composed of objects from the private collections of the former eastern borderlands — Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus — as well as from field research in Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Particularly valuable are the Hutsul collection of Xawery Dunikowski, the Albanian and Kosovar costumes collected by the Rosochacki family, and the representative collection of Bulgarian costumes assembled by Elżbieta Piskorz-Branekova. This is a highly diverse collection, comprising textiles (e.g. Hutsul liżnyky carpets, Belarusian towels), traditional clothing (Albanian xhybe, Bulgarian klaschnik, Podolian sukmana garments), woodcarving (carved chests, saddles, accessories), Hutsul ceramics, jewellery (necklaces, crosses, coral beads, bracelets), as well as ritual and everyday objects (masks, bells, watches, pipes, snuffboxes). Complementing the collection is a set of models of folk dances from the 1937 Paris Exhibition, rediscovered by the ethnochoreologist Grażyna Dąbrowska.
The collection includes almost 4,000 objects. Although not the largest, it contains many items of exceptional significance, representing the heritage of Australia and other regions of Oceania. Among the Australian objects, decorated boomerangs — engraved and painted — stand out, alongside boomerang shields and war clubs. Unique objects associated with Australian First Nations communities are also included. The Oceanic portion of the collection particularly highlights its Melanesian holdings, featuring remarkable examples of weaponry, ritual masks, and body ornaments.
The smallest and newest of the museum’s collections was established in 2017. It consists mainly of periodical publications issued in Poland in the 1990s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, including manga and annual issues of the magazine “Bajek.” The collection also includes objects documenting socio-cultural transformations linked to the political transition, social protests of the 2010s, and the pandemic period. It has a global character owing to materials related to the digital revolution and technologies of image and sound recording and playback, including both analogue and digital cameras. The collection is built through donations, acquisitions, and in-house collecting.
This collection comprises over 13,400 objects and 1,121 deposited items. It is organised according to a typology that considers craft, function, and intended use. It documents relic forms of tools and objects from rural, pre-industrial culture, as well as the transformations that followed. The holdings include objects related to food procurement, such as fishing gear, as well as items used in agriculture and animal husbandry, including beekeeping tools. An essential part of the collection consists of handcrafted tools and devices used to process basic natural raw materials, whether for household use or trade. The collection also contains interior furnishings, such as rural furniture. An integral component of the collection comprises utilitarian ceramic vessels and post-war decorative ceramics.
This collection focuses on objects associated with annual and family ritual practices, interior decoration, and religious customs. The most significant holdings relate to Christian holidays — various types of nativity scenes, carolers’ and Shrovetide accessories, podłaźniczki, decorative straw mobiles, Christmas ornaments, moulds for baking Christmas wafers and gingerbread, as well as Easter eggs, palms, and lamb figures. A key component of the collection is the set of musical instruments, encompassing every type used by rural musicians across Polish lands, along with sound-making tools serving non-musical functions and a workshop for the making and tuning of harmoniums. The museum has also gathered a toy collection — craft-made toys from Polish toy-making centres, handmade creations, and traditional fairground toys. The collection of devotional objects includes religious memorabilia from pilgrimage sites, devotional prints, and a group of wax votive figures.
This collection comprises around 15,000 objects and includes historic folk art (from the late 18th century to the early decades of the 20th), contemporary folk art (from the 1940s to the present), and twentieth- and twenty-first-century so-called non-professional art. The works represent diverse techniques: painting on wood, canvas, glass, and paper; drawing; sculpture in wood, stone, and clay; printmaking (woodcuts, linocuts, engravings, drypoint); paper cut-outs; and decorative painted items (embroidered wall hangings, painted cloths, photographic backdrops). The works originate mainly from Poland, though some were created by Polish artists living abroad. The collection has been developed since the 1940s through private donations, institutional transfers, acquisitions from artists, and fieldwork. The museum also holds deposits from interwar and later collectors, enriching the holdings with valuable examples of historic folk and non-professional art.
This collection contains nearly 21,000 objects, including garments and more than 2,500 handwoven textiles, among them double-warp fabrics, as well as a representative set of fabric samples that serve as an excellent research resource. It includes haberdashery accessories, footwear, bed linens, and table coverings from different regions of Poland. At its core are elements of festive attire, the collection of which was a priority during the post-war rebuilding of the museum’s holdings, following the ethnographic museum practice of the time, which emphasised the complete presentation of regional costumes. The collection also features a jewellery set, systematically expanded since 1949 and now including around 800 objects — coral and amber items, medallions, crosses, rings, cufflinks, clasps, as well as pipes and knives, and an impressive assemblage of jewellery from Cieszyn Silesia, including hoczki (corset lacing), belts, buttons, and breastplates.
