Konkurs na ekslibris Biblioteki Numizmatycznej Muzeum Narodowego w Krakowie
The Bookplate Contest Held by the Numismatic Library of the National Museum in Krakow

Summary/Abstract: The article describes the bookplate contest of the Numismatic Library at the National Museum in Krakow which was organized in 1918 and announced in the journal Exlibris. Despite the fact that the organizers planned for the possibly broadest framework of the entire project, allowing the participants to create their own preferred design, not necessarily of a strictly numismatic character, and despite the relatively large number of the submitted works (70!), the awarded design had never been carried out. The National Museum in Krakow preserves 58 design works submitted to the above-mentioned contest, with a majority of them identified and attributed to the specific authors. In this group of designs, the Lviv circles are particularly well represented, to name only such authors as Julia Smolkówna, Wanda Korzeniowska,Maria Podlewska, Kamilla Rosenfeld, Anna Harland-Zajączkowska, Fryderyka Kállay, and Jadwiga Szeptycka. Other noteworthy designs include those submitted by Wanda Barabaszówna, Stanisław Adamczyk, and Kajetan Stefanowicz from Krakow, Dora Mukułowska (Posen), Witold Giżbert-Studnicki (Siersza Wodnanear Trzebinia). Finally, out of the best four works submitted, the jury selected the designs by Romuald Mękicki on the emblem Kontramarka (1st Prize) and Witold Giżbert-Studnicki on the emblem Rex (2nd Prize). All the submitted ex libris designs had been exhibited at the Cloth Hall in Krakow in 1918.Further on, the article describes the circumstances leading to the announcement of the contest and presents a brief outline of the earlier initiatives undertaken by the private libraries and museum establishments in Poland with the aim of creating and adopting their own bookplates for the collections in their possession. The designs with the themes closely associated with numismatic iconography have been subjected to form and content analysis.

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