The album “Polish Manor in Vintage Photography” was published in collaboration with the State Archives. It introduces the history of Polish landed estates from the areas of Wolyń, Podole, Ukraine, Lithuania and the former Polish Kingdom as well as parts of Małopolska and Wielkopolska situated beyond its limits. Most of the presented photographs date back to the inter-war period and before WWI. The introduction was written by the renowned art historian, Professor Jan K. Ostrowski, whilst the profiles of individual manor houses were outlined by Zofia Lewicka-Depta.

From the 16th to 18th century the szlachta or Polish nobility and gentry, regardless of their wealth and position in the social hierarchy, spent most of their time in the countryside. The city was an alien environment for them, and the court of the elective kings not as attractive as the grand courts of the absolute monarchs. The proper framework for the life of a Polish gentleman was his country residence, the hub of the properties which provided his livelihood. Whether it was owned by a wealthy proprietor with several villages to his name, or an impoverished szarak (“grey noble”)
who tilled his own smallholding, it would be called a dwór (“court”), never a dworek (“little court,” the term for a small urban or suburban residence with no farming estate). Inhabited by an extended family with numerous servants, the Old Polish dwór was a veritable microcosm of the szlachta lifestyle.
(extract from introduction)

The Polish manor is the symbol of past tradition, culture and custom. Unfortunately, only few such manors have been preserved, which makes the archival photographs, retaining some of our historical legacy, even more valuable.

Prod. dr hab. Jan K. Ostrowski, an art historian, author of over 150 publications on Polish and European art, an expert on Cracow’s historical treasures and issues of the former Commonwealth Borderlands. The Director of Royal Wawel Castle, also holding the post of the Wawel Hill Conservator, head of the Research Unit of Eastern Regions of the Former Commonwealth of Jagiellonian University Institute of Art History, member of Art Historians Association, Academie de Stanislas at Nancy and Committee of Art History and Theory of Polish Academy of Sciences. Holder of the Order of Malta.
 
Zofia Lewiska-Depta, Jagiellonian University graduate, holder of diplomas in Polish Philology and Art History. For many years head of the Conservatory Information Department in Conservation Laboratories in Cracow. Co-author of the Catalogue of Cracow’s Relics of the Past, Cracow’s Encyclopaedia, Popular Encyclopaedia of Kluszyński Publishing. She collaborates with Św. Jacka Publishing House and Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences Publishing House. Senior custodian at the Department of Foreign Collections of the Provincial Public Library in Cracow. She works voluntarily for local governments and associations.
The album is published in a fully bilingual, Polish-English edition.