Opening hours: Closed Mondays and Thursdays; open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 10am-4pm; Sundays and public holidays 10am-3pm.
The museum is housed in the Royal castle, which was originally constructed for King Przemyslaw II; the Baroque north-east wing, the "Raczynski wing", was built on top of the medieval walls for the last Wielkopolski General Starosta, Kazimierz Raczynski by Antoni Hoehne in 1783. The National Museum in Poznan, which in 1965 was once again given the castle after damage from the war had been repaired, organized the Museum of Artistic Crafts there, which after its collections in the fields of industrial and unique designs had expanded, was given its current name.
The collections include exhibits from a donation made in 1923 by the Poznan Society of the Friends of Science, from the Museum of Polish and Slavic Antiquities, from the Historical Society, from the Provincial Museum, founded in 1894, and from the Wielkopolski Museum, founded in 1919.
The most valuable exhibits in the museum's collections of decorative and applied art include: liturgical vessels for water from Kruchow; a French Gothic table with a chessboard from ca. 1500; an intaglio pulpit from Mitawa with an self-portrait by Tobias Heintze from 1617; furniture from Gdansk, Elblag and Wroclaw, as well as from Italy and Holland; items by Poznan goldsmiths (from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries), and those hailing from other Polish cities, including Gdansk, Warsaw, Torun and Krakow, with items such as a kufel by J. Ceypler from ca. 1740 with a treasury of antique coins; the work of German goldsmiths (from Nuremburg, Augsburg and Berlin), Russian goldsmiths (including Fabergé); Italian majolica; Saxon, Lusatian, Silesian and Rhein stoneware; Dutch, German and Polish faience (Chodzien, Kolo, Pacykow, majolica from Nieborow), Venetian glass, Silesian glass (including a trophy by F. Winter from ca. 1705 and a smaller trophy with a depiction of the siege of Wroclaw in 1760), Saxon, Berlin, Czech and Polish glass (including painted guild goblets from 1584 and 1651), Meissen porcelain, Polish porcelain (Korzec, Baranowka, Cmielow), Western European tapestries, Polish kilims, liturgical vestments and vessels, pasy kontuszowe (kontusz belts), lace and accessories, weapons, sun dials (including one from Nuremburg made from ivory dating back to 1608) and mechanical clocks (the oldest one, made of ceramic tiles, from 1584), as well as pocket watches and Oriental exhibits including carpets, kilims, ceramics, weapons, sealing wax, bronzes and also a collection of 253 European miniatures. Other than the items of applied arts from the Middle Ages and modern period, the museum also collects Biedermeyer-period exhibits, as well as "historicizing" Secession and Art-Deco pieces from the 1950s and 1960s, and also contemporary industrial and unique handmade items from Poland and abroad.
Permanent exhibition: "Applied Art from the Middle Ages to the Present".
Muzeum Sztuk Użytkowych
Oddział Muzeum Narodowego w Poznaniu
ul. Góra Przemysława 1
61-768 Poznań
Region: wielkopolskie
Phone: (+48 61) 852 20 35, 856 81 85
Fax: (+48 61) 851 58 78
WWW: www.mnp.art.pl/oddzialy/msu
Email: mnoffice@man.poznan.pl