The Attic Museum
"Four Families"
In 2023, a museum was opened in the attic of the Kurozwęcki Palace, showcasing treasures and memorabilia of the Popiel family, as well as paintings by Józef Czapski. The Popiel Museum in the Kurozwęcki Palace is one of the very few private museums in Poland, bearing witness to the former material and intellectual culture of the gentry. Surviving the ravages of war, meticulously preserved by the extensive family, artworks, craftsmanship, books, and documents have been gathered once again in Kurozwęki over the years. Guided by the principle that even the smallest memento is worth preserving from oblivion.
Among the most significant European-level exhibits in our Museum is undoubtedly the Madonna with Child from the Italian quattrocento, painted by the Florentine artist Francesco Antonio Zacchi, known as “Il Baletto.” We must also mention Polish artists of such caliber as Piotr Michałowski, Józef Mehoffer, Henryk Siemiradzki, and the rarely encountered in Poland Walenty Wańkowicz, a close friend of Mickiewicz, author of two family portraits and a portrait of King Stanisław August Poniatowski from the Bacciarelli school. In the realm of artistic craftsmanship, it is impossible not to mention the grand silver coffee and tea service from the renowned Warsaw workshop of Karol Malcz (1865), the heraldic porcelain from the now-defunct Polish manufactory in Baranówka, and numerous other silverware items associated with courtly daily life culture.
Karol Malcz (1797-1867) Silver coffee and tea service; acquired by Natalia Countess Jezierska (1846-1918), wife of Marcin Popiel (1834-1890); engraved monograms of Natalia Jezierska with a countess’s crown, Warsaw 1865. Heraldic porcelain, Polish manufactory Baranówka, crest of Krzywda beneath a countess’s crown, probably after the Rzewuski and Wańkowicz families, circa 1840.
An intellectually intriguing complement to the exhibition is the numerous publications of the Popiel and Wańkowicz family members. Foremost among these are the historical and philosophical writings of Paweł Popiel (1807-1892), the works of his brother, Archbishop of Warsaw Wincenty Popiel (1825-1912), and books dedicated to prominent family members, including Father Marcin Popiel, the post-war parish priest in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski. The recent emigrant history of the Popiels and Wańkowiczs is marked by their long-standing friendship with the eminent painter and writer Józef Czapski – a remarkable artist and individual, inseparably linked with the milieu of the Parisian “Kultura” and its editor-in-chief Jerzy Giedroyc. In the museum’s second hall, visitors will see over twenty oil paintings carefully selected to represent various periods of Czapski’s artistic career, as well as his sketches, watercolors, letters, and mementos. Discovering the fate of these artworks and how they found their way to Kurozwęki, enriching the family’s resources as the “Marquis Popiel de Boisgelin Collection,” is an experience visitors will gain while exploring our museum.