Jagiellonian tapestries

The gifts include one tapestry with the Polish eagle bearing the date 1560, the royal initials and the letters CKCH (Christophorus Krupski Capitaneus Horodlo) next to the Korczak coat of arms and the inscription SCABELLVM PEDVM TVORVM (the footstool under your feet, from Psalm 110 (A Psalm of David)), a gift from Krzysztof Krupski, starost of Horodło for Sigismund Augustus.

In 1633, three of the tapestries with scenes from the Story of Moses, were presented by Jerzy Ossoliński, on behalf of king Władysław IV Vasa, to Pope Urban VIII.

[19] In the following years the king John II Casimir Vasa mortgaged 157 tapestries to a merchant from Gdańsk, Jan Gratta, without the consent of parliament.

[20] The parliament submitted the tapestries for safekeeping in the Warsaw's Carmelite convent[21] and for the last time they were displayed during the coronation of king Stanisław Augustus in 1764.

After the major reconstruction of the Warsaw Royal Castle's interiors in the neoclassical style the king ordered new tapestries in France and the Jagiellonian collection was rolled up and stored in the building of the Treasury Committee - Palace of the Republic.

[20] After regaining independence and victorious war with the Soviet Union the Polish government managed to recover 137 fabrics,[20] in various states of preservation, between 1922-1924.

[22] When the Second World War broke out in 1939, the tapestries stored at Wawel Castle were transported through Romania, France and England to Canada[21][23] to be finally returned, after 15 years of negotiations, to the People's Republic of Poland in the 1960s.