At a ceremonial ball of October 3, 1879, it was announced that artist Henryk Siemiradzki had offered his monumental painting called Nero's Torches (Pochodnie Nerona) as gift to the city, with the intention of creating a brand new national gallery in the building.

[1] The gallery re-opened in 2010 with new technical equipment, storerooms, and service spaces, as well as improved thematic layout of the display, providing a broader view of Polish art of the time.

[1] The Enlightenment Room, also known as the Bacciarelli Room, features late Baroque, Rococo, and Classicist 18th-century portraits from the court of Stanisław August, as well as historical paintings and battle scenes by Polish and foreign pre-Romantics; most notably, artwork by Marcello Bacciarelli, Josef Grassi, Giambattista Lampi, Per Krafft, Józef Pitschmann, Aleksander Orłowski, Franciszek Smuglewicz, Michał Stachowicz, Kazimierz Wojniakowski and similar others.

[6][7] The Józef Chełmoński Room, also called "Realism, Polish Impressionism and Symbolism", is devoted to new trends in Polish art of the late 19th century featuring landscape and genre painting, portraits, battle and domestic scenes by leading painters of the Young Poland movement, notably by Chełmoński himself with his Four-in-Hand (Czwórka, pictured), Maksymilian and Aleksander Gierymski, Józef Pankiewicz, and Leon Wyczółkowski (prominent impressionists); paintings by Wojciech Gerson, Julian Fałat, Adam Chmielowski, Stanisław Masłowski ("Moonrise") and Józef Brandt, as well as large and controversial Ecstasy, or Frenzy of Exultations (1894, pictured) by Władysław Podkowiński, and many others.

[8] Sculptures include Pius Weloński's "Gladiator", Walery Gadomski's "Salome", Piotr Wójtowicz's "Perseus With the Head of Medusa", Teodor Rygier's "Bacchante" – he is the author of Adam Mickiewicz Monument adorning the entrance to the museum on the east side of Kraków Main Square; Antoni Pleszowski's "Sadness", Piotr Michałowski's "Napoleon on Horseback" and Stanisław Lewandowski's "A Slav Breaking Chains".