Polish folk art is a burst of pure colour — cut from paper, stamped into pottery, and woven in rainbow stripes across a festival skirt. And its grandest carpets, oddly, came from Persia.
✨ Fun fact: Poland’s famous wycinanki papercuts were traditionally snipped not with fine scissors but with the large shears used to shear sheep — yet the results are as delicate as lace.
Łowicz stripes and folk dress
Closest to our own world is Polish weaving. The Łowicz region of central Poland is famous for its pasiaki — brilliant multi-coloured woven wool stripes — made up into the full, swinging skirts of one of Europe’s most colourful costumes. The colours have their own history: into the early twentieth century the striped ground was mostly red, then orange, until in the 1930s aniline dyes brought in cool greens, blues and violets. Over it all goes dense floral embroidery, and the whole effect is colour used entirely without fear — which is exactly the spirit of a festive saree.
Wycinanki — the art of the papercut
Poland’s most distinctive craft is the wycinanka: intricate folk paper cut-outs, often perfectly symmetrical, in glowing layers of colour. The style differs by region — the women of Kurpie cut single-colour silhouettes from paper folded once, while the Łowicz cutters build up many layers of coloured paper into nalepianki. The subjects are roosters and peacocks, star-shaped medallions called gwiazdy, flowers and trees — once pasted onto cottage walls and beams each spring.
It is, at heart, the same instinct as a woven border: a pattern built up by hand, symmetrical, repeated, made purely to gladden the eye.
The Polonaise carpet — Persia, mistaken for Poland
Here is the strange and lovely twist. Some of the most magnificent “Polish” carpets in the world’s museums are not Polish at all. In the seventeenth century, wealthy Polish magnates ordered sumptuous carpets — silk pile shot with gold and silver thread — from the royal workshops of Safavid Persia, at Isfahan and Kashan, some woven with the family’s own coat of arms. Centuries later, when a group of them was shown at the 1878 Paris exhibition bearing Polish arms, they were catalogued as tapis polonais — “Polish carpets” — and the name Polonaise stuck, long after everyone understood the carpets were Persian.
We collect these stories, because they are all one story: the Bukhara rug named for the city that only sold it, the shawl of Manila that came from China, the “African” wax print invented in Holland. Cloth crosses every border and picks up a new name at each one.
Kilims and double-warp carpets
Poland has its own flat-weaving too. The kilim — a tapestry-woven wool rug — became a point of national pride in the early twentieth century, and the north-east is known for dywany dwuosnowowe, double-warp carpets: reversible two-layer weaves in which the back is the exact colour-reversal of the front, worked in wool on a hand loom.
Bolesławiec — the stamped pottery
Just as recognisable is the stoneware of Bolesławiec, hand-decorated with the signature “peacock’s eye” — small patterns stamped on with a cut sponge in cobalt blue, then glazed to a hard, warm finish.
Where to see it
- Muzeum w Łowiczu (Łowicz Museum) — costume, pasiaki and wycinanki.
- National Museum, Warsaw and Kraków — the Polonaise carpets and folk kilims.
- Wilanów Palace, Warsaw — for royal textiles and carpets.
- The Ethnographic Museum, Kraków — the great national folk collection.
The thread we love
Stripes woven without a single timid colour. Flowers cut from folded paper. And a “Polish” carpet that turns out to have been woven in Isfahan — one more proof that beautiful cloth has never belonged to just one country. Explore our handwoven Brocade Fabric collection.
Frequently asked questions
What is Poland most famous for in crafts?
Its colourful wycinanki papercuts, the stamped stoneware of Bolesławiec, the striped folk weaving of Łowicz, kilim rugs, Koniaków lace, and highlander woodcarving from Zakopane.
What are wycinanki?
Traditional Polish folk papercuts — intricate, often symmetrical designs of roosters, flowers and trees in layered colour (multicoloured in Łowicz, single-colour in Kurpie), historically used to decorate village homes.
What are Łowicz pasiaki?
Brilliant multi-coloured woven wool stripes from the Łowicz region, made into the full skirts and garments of one of Europe’s most colourful folk costumes.
What is a Polonaise carpet?
A luxury silk-and-metal-thread carpet woven in Safavid Persia (Isfahan and Kashan) in the seventeenth century for European — often Polish — clients. Shown at the 1878 Paris exhibition bearing Polish coats of arms, such carpets were mistakenly called “Polish,” and the name Polonaise endured.
What is Bolesławiec pottery?
Polish stoneware decorated by hand with cobalt-blue “peacock’s eye” patterns stamped on with cut sponges, then glazed to a hard, durable finish.
Sources & further reading
On the Polonaise carpets, Łowicz costume and pasiaki, wycinanki and Bolesławiec stoneware, see the collections of the National Museums in Warsaw and Kraków, the Muzeum w Łowiczu, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
More from Khinkhwab Diaries: the crafts of Iran · the Silk Road · the Turkmen carpet · the crafts of Hungary.
