Museum of Toys and Play in Kielce

The Museum of Toys and Play is the biggest and the oldest museum of toys in Poland. On an exhibition area of six hundred thirty-one square metres there are presented a few thousands of exhibits. Visitors can see a multitude of exhibitions, among others, historical and folk toys, dolls from all over the world, model cars, aeroplanes, boats, railway models and theatrical dolls.

They endeavor to make the visiting of the museum unusual adventure for children, hence interactive exhibitions where young learners of the history of toys can not only watch but also touch the exhibits. During visiting the museum children have a chance to play both in a play area and, in summer, also in the courtyard of the museum. The Museum of Toys and Play is housed in a historic 19th-century building of the former covered markets. Every day at noon from the clock tower of the museum a Swietokrzyska witch which was sculptured by Arkadiusz Latos and installed on the tower by a clockmaker, Bonifacy Komorowski, “flies off”. In the grandma’s attic are china dolls and aged teddy bears, a wooden yo-yo of seventy and a wicker pram, a paper mache car. Among the exhibits there is an inconspicuous-looking rag doll of the World War II period which was made from soldierly uniform scraps. It was the only toy of a little girl exiled in Kazakhstan. Of special interest here is the magic lantern produced in the 1920s by Bing, the German company, which was used to show slides and film. The afternoon tea exhibition includes historical dolls and among them the most prized and unique exhibit of the Museum of Toys and Play: a wax doll from the end of the 18th century, a 20-centimetre high figure of a German bourgeois. Almost all dolls “drinking” the afternoon tea come from Germany from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. All of them have bisque heads and natural hair – at that times there was no plastics yet. Another exhibitions include: Dolls of the world: dressy women, icons and fetishes; Modeling – a play not only for children , Rumour has it that teddy bears have appeared in the wood and My theatre – an exhibition of a theatrical doll from the collection of The Doll and Actor’s Theatre “Kubus” in Kielce.

Address: 2 Wolnosci Square

Opening hours:
Mondays – closed

Tuesdays – Sundays – 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.