[3] Princess Izabela Czartoryska founded the museum in Puławy to preserve Polish heritage in keeping with her motto, "The Past to the Future."

The Museum collections feature historical artifacts from the recovered treasures of the Wawel Cathedral, the Royal Castle and other objects donated by Polish noble families (szlachta).

Among these were Shakespeare's chair, fragments from the alleged graves of Romeo and Juliet in Verona, ashes of El Cid and Ximena from the Cathedral of Burgos, and relics of Abelard and Heloise, and Petrarch and his Laura.

[4] In 1798 Izabela's son, Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, traveled to Italy and acquired Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, and many Roman antiquities.

He established himself in Paris, and in 1843 bought The Hotel Lambert, which became both the center of operations for the exiled Czartoryski magnate, and the Living Museum of Poland.

A born collector, he and his sister, Princess Izabela Działyńska, expanded the collection to include: the Polonaise carpet, Etruscan and Greek vases, Roman and Egyptian antiquities, and other types of arms and armours, as well as Limoges enamels.

At the 1865 Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, Władysław created a Polish room to exhibit the famous carpet and other parts of his collection.

In 1874, the city of Kraków offered him the arsenal in the Old Wall as a museum, which he called upon Viollet-le-Duc to renovate, who in turn delegated the project to his son-in-law Maurice Ouradou.

In 1914, he was called up to the Austrian Army and his wife Princess Maria Ludwika Krasinska took over the Museum, taking most of the important artifacts (52 paintings, 12 carpets, 35 folders of prints and drawings, and works by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Rembrandt) to Dresden because of her connections with the Royal Saxon Family.

In 1931 a large number of important books, archives and objects that had been taken from Puławy by Russians in 1831 - immediately after the November Uprising - were also returned, though most of these were placed in various national depositories.

On January 25, 1940, the final selections of the 85 most important items from the Museum were sent to Dresden, where Dr. Posse, Hitler's plenipotentiary, decided that all objects were to be part of the Führer's own collection at Linz.

The Americans arrested Dr. Frank on May 4, and the Polish representative at the Allies Commission for the Retrieval of Works of Art claimed the stolen paintings on behalf of the Czartoryski Museum.

Amid the country's desperate economic situation, the Museum survived thanks largely to the work of Professor Marek Rostworoski, who dedicated his life to the collections.

In autumn 2002, the Lady with an Ermine was featured at the Milwaukee Art Museum's tribute to the Splendor of Poland; in 2003 the portrait and other collection items went on to Houston and San Francisco.

[clarification needed] The Princes Czartoryski Foundation received from the Polish Nation (the Ministry of Culture) $105 million, constituting less than 5% of the 3 billion euros estimated market value of the collections.