Zbiór dzieł złotniczych i biżuterii Leonarda Lepszego w Muzeum Narodowym w Krakowie

The collection of goldsmithery and jewellery at Cracow’s National Museum contains a group of over 40 works donated in 1903-1913 coming from the former collection of Leonard Lepszy, a known researcher into goldsmithery and material culture in Cracow, lover of monuments, author of many publications on history of art. The collection may have been created starting already from the 1880s when Lepszy held the position of the inspector, and later head of the still-then Austro-Hungarian Hallmark Office. It may have been started with the pieces brought to the Office in order to have them melted either to receive the metal or the money in return. Leonard Lepszy tried to purchase as many as he could of the most precious and interesting works, thus saving them from a total destruction. At the same time the works served him as the grounds for pioneer, systematic research into the hallmarks visible in old silver pieces; e.g. hallmarks cut out from the historic pieces brought to the Hallmark Office in Cracow and Lvov and given to Karl Knies who used them to publish a study on Austrian hallmarks. A part of Leonard Lepszy’s collection was presented in Cracow in 1904 at metal craft exhibition; confrontation of the catalogue notes with the Museum’s archival records allowed for a hypothetical reconstruction of the collection from before 1913 as well as identification of respective works in the Museum’s collection.