The term ‘classical art’ refers to works of the ancient civilizations of Greece, Etruria and Rome. The Museum’s Cypriot exhibits are also included in the collection because most of them comes from the period of clear predominance of Greek culture.

Works of Classical Art form the most important section of the entire collection of Ancient Art, with regards to both quantity (two thirds of all exhibits) and quality. It is due to the appropriation of the collections amassed by the Polish noble families (Branicki from Wilanów, Radziwiłł from Nieborów, and Potocki from Łańcut and Jabłonna), seized by the Museum in the period following World War II. These collections were formed around a body of material from Italy at the end of the 18th and at the beginning of the 19th century. Later on, when the collection of the Czartoryski family from Gołuchów was returned to Poland from the former Soviet Union, it was also annexed by the Museum.  This collection had been created in the second half of the 19th century with the help of experts from the Louvre.

The Museum’s Collection also consists of  fragments of pre-war German municipal holdings from Szczecin, Wrocław, Kaliningrad and Braniewo which had been obtained on the antiquarian market at the end of the 19th and at the beginning of the 20th century. These objects were incorporated into the Museum’s collection after World War II. Materials from excavations play a lesser role than the objects purchased on the antiquarian market. There are, however, notable exceptions. The rich selection of ceramics and pottery from Mirmeki and  terracotta, ceramics and architectural elements from Tell Atrib (among which a column from a bath portico dated to the first half of the 2nd century is the most noteworthy) were all acquired during excavation works. 

During the 18th and 19th century, classical Greek art of the 5th and 4th century BC was immensely popular. Roman copies of Greek sculptures and red-figured vases were thus highly prized. Among the Roman pieces, portraits were most valued.  Other works of art were given less attention. Since the Museum’s Collection was founded on the basis of private assemblages created in this period, the aforementioned objects form the core of the exhibition.

Some of the Museum’s exhibits from this category are of outstanding quality. The amphorae: a Panathenaic by the Berlin Painter, by Euthymides, by the Painter of the Louvre Centauromachy, the skyphos-kotyle by the Euaion Painter, the stamnos by the Painter of the Boston Phiale, the kylix by the Eretria Painter and many other vases, mainly from Gołuchów, can justly be called masterpieces. Other vases are important from the technical point of view  (the olpai by the Gołuchów Painter), or because of their unique iconography (the kalpis by the Sappho Painter, with the oldest known portrait of the poetess). The portrait of Domitia, the head of a wounded Amazon and the torso of Apollo Omphalos are also of extraordinary quality.

The neoclassical character of the exhibition has been diluted after taking over the Szczecin and Wrocław collections, which contained some valuable Etruscan and archaic Greek objects. The Etruscan section of the exhibition was further enriched by a terracotta sarcophagus of the Tuscan type. In order to modernize the gallery, the Museum also acquired a late Ancient Roman sarcophagus with the representation of a married couple (1998) and a valuable deposit of Proto-Attic amphorae dated to the first half of the 7th century BC from the Altes Museum in Berlin (2005).