Art historians continue to warn that the transportation of a Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece to London could damage it irreparably  - but there is consolation for art lovers with the first ever exhibition in Poland of Joseph Turner, set to open this year, the National Gallery has announced.

The National Museum in Krakow unveiled its plans for 2011 at a press conference Friday morning, during which the programme of the year's exhibitions was discussed, as well as the latest developments in the move of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Lady in an Ermine.

Zofia Golubiew, director of the National Museum in Krakow, expressed her delight that Turner, England's greatest Romantic painter, would be coming to Poland.

The show, comprising of approximately 85 works, including 15 oil paintings, is due to open in October. The exhibition, which comes from Tate Britain, reciprocates a loan made by the National Museum in Krakow for the 2009 exhibition “Symbolism in Poland and Britain.”

Other highlights of the year for Krakow include “Treasures of the Spanish Crown”, a major exhibition opening in July, tying in with the loan of Polish splendours to Madrid.

In the more immediate future, a major exhibition will be launched in tribute to one of Poland's most distinguished ethnologists, Stanislaw Vincenz (1888-1971), whose arcadia was the Huculszczyzna, a stretch of the Carpathians that lies in present-day Ukraine. “On the High Uplands: Art of the Huculszczyzna and the Huculszczyzna in Art” opens on March 18.

Uncertainties over Leonardo

In December 2010, representatives of the Polish Association of Art Historians sent an appeal to international heritage watchdog Artwatch, calling for the loan of Krakow's Leonardo da Vinci to be prevented.

Lady with an Ermine, which belongs to the Foundation of the Czartoryski Princes, is due to travel to London's National Gallery for a major retrospective of the Italian master. However, conservators in Poland have claimed that the painting is too delicate to travel.

Although technically the painting's home is the 200 year-old Czartoryski Museum, the collections are co-administrated by the National Museum in Krakow, which is ambivalent about the loans.

On Friday, Zofia Golubiew of the National Museum confirmed with some apprehension that besides going to London, the painting may also travel to Berlin.

Voicing her concerns about the travels, she said today that decisions about the loans “should be made by a higher authority,” citing Poland's Ministry of Culture.

However, the Czartoryski Museum is currently in the throes of a far-reaching revamp, and last December, chairman of the Czartoryski Foundation, historian Adam Zamoyski, said that the painting – temporarily on display in Warsaw - will be ‘more closely guarded’ whilst on loan.

Zamoyski's cousin, Prince Adam Czartoyski, reclaimed the family collection in 1991 following the collapse of the Iron Curtain. However, an agreement was signed stipulating that the National Museum would co-administrate the museum.  (nh)