Iwona Dymarczyk

Souvenirs Related to Ignacy Łukasiewicz in the Collection of the Pharmacy Museum at Jagiellonian University Medical College
2022-11-30

Souvenirs Related to Ignacy Łukasiewicz in the Collection of the Pharmacy Museum at Jagiellonian University Medical College

The exhibition devoted to Ignacy Łukasiewicz at the Pharmacy Museum in Kraków was planned almost from the beginning of the institution’s existence (1946). As more pieces were obtained, an exhibition entitled the Pharmacist’s Office, dedicated to Ignacy Łukasiewicz was organized. The aim of the study is to present the unique souvenirs related to this greatly meritorious figure in the history of Polish pharmacy. The most valuable of them are 11 objects, most of which come from family collections, from Jerzy Pilecki’s collection These include handwritten items: a pharmacy manual initiated by Łukasiewicz in 1850, a Brzostek pharmacy inventory also written by him in 1959, as well as personal mementos: an escritoire and a home first-aid kit from the Łukasiewicz manor house in Chorkówka, a tin box from the times of Łukasiewicz’s struggles for independence in 1846, a diploma of praise awarded to Łukasiewicz C.K. by the Krakow Economic and Agricultural Society during a Farm Animal Exhibition, Agricultural Tools and Machines in Jasło from June 15, 1878, a portrait medal from 1878, minted on the 25th anniversary of lighting the kerosene lamp, a silver hand bell with a saucer, with the monogram “IHŁ” (Ignacy Honorata Łukasiewicz), a photograph of Honorata Łukasiewicz and her brother Jan Dydak - Stacherski from 1865 (?), a photographic portrait of Ignacy Łukasiewicz from around 1880 (?), an oil portrait of Ignacy Łukasiewicz by Józef Klaz, painted in Vienna in 1868. Other exhibits include utensils from pharmacies in Gorlice and Brzostek professionally associated with Łukasiewicz, vessels for crude oil and kerosene used in 19th century pharmacies are also described, as well as two prototypes of kerosene lamps designed by Ignacy Łukasiewicz, and decorative Viennese lamps from the second half of the 19th-century modeled on their basis. There are also three photographs of the “Under the Golden Star” pharmacy in Lviv, taken by Jan Wiesław Radwański in 1923, as well as contemporary commemorative medals and paintings thematically related to this figure. The compilation in question is probably the most valuable collection of Ignacy Łukasiewicz’s personal mementos.

Keywords: Ignacy Łukasiewicz, kerosene lamp, museum, pharmacy Krakow.

© Farm Pol, 2022, 78(9): 501–514