Konstanty Aleksander Wiktor Schmidt-Ciążyński (born February 18, 1818,[1][2][3] died January 5, 1889, in Gorizia)[4] was a Polish collector and art connoisseur, who donated a large collection to the National Museum in Kraków.

[7][8] Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński's mother was Ludwika Rozalia Ciążyńska,[1][7] a woman from Greater Poland described as a "famous beauty",[9] which explains the second part of his surname, adopted later in life.

[9] As a ten-year-old boy, he accompanied his father not only on medical journeys throughout the country but also on the Eastern campaign, i.e., during the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829, serving as a dragoman.

[12] Shortly thereafter, in 1839,[13] he found himself in Saint Petersburg, where he became associated with the Hermitage Museum as an extraordinary, non-staff employee, having a free hand in choosing the objects of his work and the right to abandon them at any time.

Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński wisely invested his funds from Russia, significantly enriching his collections (again, through several trips across Europe) and establishing an antique shop (named Schmidt Antiquaire at 3 Quai Voltaire, with branches in Vichy and Nice),[17] which soon gained great renown, attracting even crowned heads as clients.

[17] After the loss of his only son, a young man of great virtues and extraordinary talents[19] who had already established his own position in the artistic world, Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński left Paris in 1869 and moved with his wife to London, where he found a permanent residence.

Towards the end of his life filled with travels around the world, and with no close family, Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński decided to donate the fruits of his many years of work and sacrifices to his homeland, the country of his childhood.

Living abroad at that time, namely in London and being of advanced age, I feared that in case of my death, the rare collections of works of art and precious artifacts, which I had amassed over 50 years of my life spent in wandering, at the cost of hard work and all my fortune, and which had gained European fame among connoisseurs and enthusiasts of ancient monuments, would fall into foreign hands.

Therefore, in February 1883,[21] he wrote a letter to one of his Viennese friends, the antiquarian and antiquities expert Tobias von Biehler,[22] inquiring whether there were any museums in Polish lands.

On 6 April 1883, he wrote from London to Count Plater, declaring his readiness to donate his collections to Rapperswil, for perpetual ownership by the Polish Museum, the country in which I was born and to which I had always been, am, and will remain, a loving and grateful son.

[23][24] Among the items transferred to Rapperswil were:[26][27] Almost at the same time, Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński turned his attention to Poznań, the capital of Greater Poland, the region from which his mother originated.

[28][29] The donation included the following works of art:[30] Also in May 1883, Schmidt-Ciążyński learned from Miss Anna Wolska, who was staying in London and was a friend of Karol Estreicher, that the National Museum in Kraków was already operating (it was established on 5 October 1879, and after a four-year period of formation, it obtained its statute in March 1883).

[31][32][33] These packages included:[32][34] During the correspondence with Estreicher, it was agreed that the engraved gem collection would be evaluated in Vienna by representatives of the Kraków museum and the city authorities.

[35] The experts examining the collection were Zygmunt Cieszkowski, Marian Sokołowski [pl], and the curator of the imperial museums in Vienna, Friedrich von Kenner.

According to this agreement, upon its approval by the city council, Schmidt-Ciążyński was to receive a lifelong annuity of 300 pounds sterling annually (equivalent to 3600 Austro-Hungarian gulden), in exchange for which his engraved gem collection would become the property of the museum.

[40] The first public display of the collection took place in the Kraków Cloth Hall during the inauguration of the museum's exhibition of artifacts from the time of John III Sobieski on the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Vienna.

[47] On 19 June 1885, in the presence of notary Stefan Muczkowski, an agreement was signed for the transfer of the engraved gem collection to Kraków.

[50][51] From June 5 to 27, 1886, the museum, represented by director Władysław Łuszczkiewicz and curator Teodor Nieczui-Ziemięcki, in the presence of Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński, entered the engraved gem collection into the inventory, preparing an accurate list, which included 2517 items.

[55] In addition to the engraved gems, the collection transferred to Kraków included, among other things, 82 paintings and drawings by artists such as (except the ones mentioned above) Jan Brueghel the Elder, Frans Pourbus (the younger), Willem van Bemmel.

[27] Count Plater consistently refused to transfer the objects already received to the new owner of the collection, namely the National Museum in Kraków.

[56] In this situation, on 30 December 1886, the city council decided to sue Plater for the return of the works of art located in Rapperswil, which were transferred to the museum by Konstanty Schmidt-Ciążyński.

[60] At the turn of 1901 and 1902, as part of the reorganization of the National Museum's headquarters in the Cloth Hall, Langierówka was renovated, where, in addition to watercolors, oil studies, prints, and miniatures, engrved gems from the Schmidt-Ciążyński collection were exhibited.

[62] During this time, when the Schmidt-Ciążyński collection was stored in the Numismatics Department, the engraved gems had their markings and numbers corresponding to the list drawn up in 1886 removed.

In this form, the glyptic collection, after being separated from numismatic objects, was transferred to the Department of Artistic Crafts and Material Culture of the National Museum in Kraków in the 1950s, where it is currently stored[63][64] in the warehouses.