palace sightseeing
The entire palace is available for visiting (dungeons, cellars, courtyard, 1st floor, and attic, where the museum is located). The tour starts outside, in front of the Palace. The tour takes approximately 1.5 hours.
The interiors of the Kurozwęki Palace are accessible for visiting with a guide, who introduces tourists to the history of the palace and the families who lived there, as well as current interesting facts!
CELLARS
Between the 14th and 16th centuries, when most castle buildings were erected, the level of rivers and groundwater was much lower than it is today. In the mid-16th century, a period of approximately 300 years of cooling and humidification of the climate, known as the “Little Ice Age,” began. In the Polish lands, the cooling and humidification of the climate caused the water levels in rivers and groundwater to rise. In the valley of the Czarna River near Kurozwęki, the water level rose by at least 1.5 meters in the 17th century. This necessitated the raising of the courtyard level twice – in the 17th and early 18th centuries – and the flooding of the rooms of the former ground floor transformed into cellars. As a result, in the second half of the 18th century, the filling of most cellar rooms began, which continued until the mid-20th century. In 2000, the cellars were cleared of debris, dried, and brought to their current state.
GROUND FLOOR
The ground floor of the palace houses the courtyard, library, reception, boutique, restaurant, kitchen, hotel room, and administration. The inner courtyard of the palace is a beautiful place, with a well in the center and cloisters around it. Most of the rooms on the ground floor have cross vaults.
FIRST FLOOR
The first floor of the palace is the richest part, worth visiting. In 2023, all rooms were restored to their 19th-century appearance. In the green and red salons, there are damask wallpapers and paneling on the walls, and the original fireplaces have also been restored, which were stored away during the renovation after the palace was repurchased. We made sure that every element of the decor, if not original, perfectly replicates the previous decorative element. The chandeliers in the red salon and portrait salon are original, while others are replicas of those that were once in the Ballroom and the Green Salon, in the style of Maria Theresa. The portrait salon features reproductions of original portraits, which are currently in the National Museum in Kielce. The chapel of the palace, described earlier, is also located on the first floor.
ATTIC
In 2023, a museum was opened in the attic of the palace, where you can see the treasures and mementos of the Popiel family, as well as paintings by Józef Czapski. The Popiel Museum in the Kurozwęki Palace is one of the very few private museums in Poland, bearing witness to the former material and intellectual culture of the gentry. Saved from the ravages of war and meticulously preserved by the extensive family, works of art and craftsmanship, books, and documents have been reassembled in Kurozwęki over the years, guided by the principle that even the smallest memento is worth “saving from oblivion.” Among the most important European exhibits in our museum is undoubtedly the Madonna with Child from the Italian quattrocento by the Florentine painter Francesco Antonio Zacchi, known as “Il Baletto.” Polish artists of such caliber as Piotr Michałowski, Józef Mehoffer, Henryk Siemiradzki, and the rarely encountered Walenty Wańkowicz, a close friend of Mickiewicz, author of two family portraits, and a portrait of King Stanisław August Poniatowski from the Bacciarelli school, must also be mentioned. In terms of craftsmanship, it is impossible not to mention the magnificent, silver coffee and tea service from the famous Warsaw workshop of Karol Malcz (1865), the heraldic porcelain from the now-defunct Polish manufactory in Baranówka, and many other silverware items associated with the courtly culture of daily life.
Karol Malcz (1797-1867) Silver coffee and tea service; commissioned by Natalia Countess Jezierska (1846-1918), wife of Marcin Popiel (1834-1890); engraved monograms of Natalia Jezierska with a count’s crown, Warsaw 1865 Heraldic porcelain, Polish Baranówka factory, Krzywda coat of arms under a count’s crown, probably after the Rzewuski and Wańkowicz families, around 1840.
An intellectual – yet equally interesting – complement to the exhibition is the numerous publications of the Popiel and Wańkowicz family members. Foremost among them are the historical-philosophical writings of Paweł Popiel “Ekscelencji” (1807 -1892), works of his brother, Archbishop of Warsaw, Wincenty Popiel (1825-1912), as well as books dedicated to eminent family members, including Rev. Marcin Popiel, post-war parish priest in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. The recent emigrant history of the Popiels and Wańkowiczs is intertwined with their longstanding friendship with the eminent painter and writer Józef Czapski – a magnificent artist and man, indelibly associated with the milieu of the Parisian “Culture” and Jerzy Giedroyc, its editor-in-chief. In the second room of the Museum, you will see over twenty oil paintings, carefully selected to represent different periods of Czapski’s work, as well as his sketches, watercolors, letters, and mementos. How they fared, and how they found their way to Kurozwęki, enriching the family’s resources as the “Collection of Marquis Popiel de Boisgelin” – you will learn all about it when visiting our Museum.