The Wilanow Palace Museum is made up of a Baroque palace and park dating from 1675-1700, constructed by King Jan III Sobieski as a royal residence for himself, August II and the Sieniawski, Czartoryski, Lubomirski and Potocki aristocratic families. The later owners maintained "a mausoleum the size of the King and Commonwealth"Zmementoes connected with Jan SobieskiZin the royal suites that have been preserved. In 1805, the residence was turned into a professional museum, displaying not only historical objects but also Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki's art collection, including Polish and European painting, ancient sculpture, Etruscan vases, a dactiliotheka, Asian art, decorative arts, including ceramics, silver, jewellery, weapons, a numismatics collection, a collection of drawings and a fine library with a large archival section.
Systematically expanded and enriched by its successive owners, Wilanow has played an important educational and cultural role. In 1945, the state took over the care and management of the palace, with the furnishings that managed to survive the Nazi occupation. The museum, which before the war used to be called the Branicki Public Museum, became a branch of the Warsaw National Museum, and then, in 1995, an independent institution.
The central part of the palace, the ground floor, is made up of residential interiors from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, richly decorated with seventeenth through nineteenth century wall and ceiling paintings, stuccos, colourful textiles and ceramic tiles. True to their original state, the interiors feature numerous paintings, sculptures and examples of decorative arts. Particularly valuable is the collection of seventeenth through nineteenth century Polish and European painting, including the Polish Portrait Gallery, with its large group of Sarmatian and coffin portraits, and portraits of Wilanow's owners, including many portraits of Jan III and his family, and the famous Portrait of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, by J. L. David. Other highlights include a collection of ancient sculpture and Etruscan vases, Meissen porcelain, Limoges enamel, examples of Augsburg goldsmithery, nineteenth century French silver and bronze, Saxon, English and French furniture, and military objects. The first floor of the palace's south wing, whose walls and ceilings are decorated with pseudo-Chinese ornaments, contains the "Chinese rooms", which house an exhibition of Asian art and its European imitations.
Permanent exhibitions: Palace Interiors: Royal Suites of Jan III and Maria Kazimiera: 1677-1696; Royal Suites of August II: 1730-1733; Duchess Izabela Lubomirska's Suite: 1778-1789; Left-Wing Nineteenth-Century Suite; 1st Floor: Polish Portrait Gallery: Fourteenth through Nineteenth Centuries; Historical Room: History of the Wilanow Residence and Its Holdings.
Muzeum Pałac w Wilanowie
ul. Stanisława Kostki-Potockiego 10/16
02-958 Warszawa
Region: mazowieckie
Phone: (+48 22) 842 81 01 (centrala), 842 07 95 (rezerwacja)
Fax: (+48 22) 842 31 16
WWW: www.wilanow-palac.art.pl
Email: muzeum@muzeum-wilanow.pl