Opening hours: Closed Mondays; open all other days, 10am-3pm.
The palace in Choroszcz was the summer residence of the crown hetman and castellan of Krakow, Jan Klemens Branicki (1689-1771), a powerful aristocrat raised and educated in a French cultural milieu. The palace was built on an artificial island, which is surrounded by canals modeled after those at Versailles. Probably designed by the French architect Pierre Ricaud de Tirregaile, this enormous 25 hectare park is the only one of its kind in Poland, and its criss-crossing canals and star-shaped paths are similar to those at the gardens of Vaux-le-Vicomte and Versailles. The construction of the Baroque residence at Choroszcz lasted from 1745 almost until Branicki's death in 1771. A fire destroyed it in 1915, and the palace was reconstructed only much later during the years 1961-1973, and then made into a museum.
The ground floor, where the Branicki family once had its quarters, and the first floor, where the guest rooms used to be, were rebuilt for use today as exhibition rooms, where one can see period furniture, for example, from Rococo to sets in the style of Louis XVI. The interiors are decorated with paintings from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries, including portraits of the palace's owners, canvases of the French, Italian and German schools from the mid-eighteenth century. In addition, there are also mirrors, grandfather and mantel clocks, Meissen, Vienna and Berlin porcelain, art glass from Polish and West European makers, marble and bronze sculptures, alabaster vases, candlesticks, sconces and carpets.
Muzeum Wnętrz Pałacowych w Choroszczy
Oddział Muzeum Podlaskiego w Białymstoku
16-070 Choroszcz
Phone: (+48 85) 719 12 33
WWW: www.muzeum.bialystok.pl/choroszcz
Email: muzeum.wnetrz@muzeum.bialystok.pl
