and in spite of the occasional superficiality of treatment, attained a high level of art, witness his pictures in the Cathedral and in the church of the Missionary Fathers, in the quarter called Stradom. The year 1745 is remarkable for an important event in the evolution of plastic art at Cracow: for in this year the Rector of the University, by a decree, admitted the painters of Cracow as followers of a liberal profession, to the freedom of the University. The painters forthwith entered their names on the books of the University; this meant an important change in their social position.
Under the reign of Poland's last king, Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, a weak monarch, but a great favourer of the arts, the Court of Warsaw became a centre of refined culture. The most eminent foreign artists entered the king's service and exercised a beneficial influence on the education of Polish adepts. The king formed the design of a series of pictures illustrating Polish history. This idea had a deep suggestive influence on artists' minds all over the country. Thus there appeared at Cracow, Michael Stachowicz, an indifferent artist, but valuable to us for his observation of contemporary events of the life that rolled its tide through the squares, streets, and churches of Cracow; all he saw there he registered faithfully in his drawings and pictures, and thus became a truly representative, national painter.—Abbé Hugo Kollataj, who reorganized Poland's educational system, provided for the teaching of design by appointing for this purpose one Dominic Estreicher, a Moravian painter. At the same time, the art of miniature painting on ivory became fashionable; at Cracow, it was illustrated by the names of the eminent artists Kopf (d. 1832), Kosinski (d. 1821), Sonntag (d. 1834), and Cercha (d. 1820). The finest collection of ivory miniatures is to be found in the museum of Prince Czartoryski. This collection must also be mentioned here as extremely rich in pictures of great foreign masters. We find there the portraits of Cecilia Galerani by Lionardo da Vinci, of Jacob Meyer, burgomaster of Basle, by Hans Holbein, jun., of Pescara and of Charles V by Titian, of Lady Pembroke by Van Dyck, of Anne de Retz
