The Copper-Roof Palace ( pl, pałac Pod Blachą) is an 18th-century palace in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is official ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is divided into Voivodeships of Poland, sixteen voivodeships and is the fifth most populous member state of the European Union (EU), with over 38 mill ...

. It takes its name (which is less precisely phrased in the original Polish) from the

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish ...

roof A roof ( : roofs or rooves) is the top covering of a building, including all materials and constructions necessary to support it on the walls of the building or on uprights, providing protection against rain, snow, sunlight, extremes of temp ...

, a rarity in the first half of the 18th century. Since 1989 the palace has been a branch of the Royal Castle Museum. The palace is contiguous with Warsaw's Royal Castle, and down a slope from Castle Square and Warsaw's Old Town. Beneath the palace, a 17th-century lodge still exists.

History

The original patrician house of Wawrzyniec Reffus was built in 1651–1656. After its 1657 destruction by the army of

George II Rákóczi en, George II Rákóczi, house= Rákóczi, father=, mother= Zsuzsanna Lorántffy, religion=CalvinismGeorge II Rákóczi (30 January 1621 – 7 June 1660), was a Hungarian nobleman, Prince of Transylvania (1648-1660), the eldest son of George ...

, it was completely remodeled in 1698–1701 for Jerzy Dominik Lubomirski. Lubomirski built on a southern wing, perpendicular to the rest of the structure, and expanded the western elevation. Soon after, the palace came to be called ''Palais Martin'' after Lubomirski's grandson. In 1720 the palace was rebuilt with the addition of a second, northern wing; and the interior was decorated with

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

paintings. After 1777 the palace passed into the possession of Poland's last king,

Stanisław August Poniatowski Stanisław II August (born Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski; 17 January 1732 – 12 February 1798), known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, and the last monarch ...

, who hired the architect Domenico Merlini to redesign the rooms and to join the Royal Castle's library wing to it. The King then presented the redecorated palace to his nephew, Prince

Józef Poniatowski Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski (; 7 May 1763 – 19 October 1813) was a Polish general, minister of war and army chief, who became a Marshal of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. A nephew of king Stanislaus Augustus of Poland (), P ...

. The Prince was a successful commander in the 1794

Kościuszko Uprising The Kościuszko Uprising, also known as the Polish Uprising of 1794 and the Second Polish War, was an uprising against the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia led by Tadeusz Kościuszko in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Pr ...

, and later one of

Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

's marshals. Under the Prince's ownership, the palace became a center of Warsaw's high-class social scene. When Warsaw became part of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: ...

after the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Poli ...

(1795), the palace became a Prussian Ministry of War headquarters. The Copper-Roof Palace was deliberately burned in 1944 by the occupying Germans. In 1948–1949 it was reconstructed, based on 18th-century paintings by

Bernardo Bellotto Bernardo Bellotto (c. 1721/2 or 30 January 172117 November 1780), was an Italian urban landscape painter or ''vedutista'', and printmaker in etching famous for his ''vedute'' of European cities – Dresden, Vienna, Turin, and Warsaw. He was t ...

. The palace is now a museum, part of Warsaw's Royal Castle, and hosts a historic library and a permanent exhibit of

oriental rug An oriental rug is a heavy textile made for a wide variety of utilitarian and symbolic purposes and produced in " Oriental countries" for home use, local sale, and export. Oriental carpets can be pile woven or flat woven without pile, using v ...

Gallery

File:Palac pod Blacha 001.jpg, Southern facade File:Palac pod Blacha 002.jpg, Eastern facade, St. Anne's Church on the left, Royal Castle on the right File:Kolekcja Kobierców Wschodnich Pałac pod Blachą 01.JPG, Exhibition of oriental rugs File:Pokój sypialny Pałac pod Blachą.JPG, Prince

's bedroom File:Copper-Roof Palace, Warsaw.png File:Warszawa-pod Blachą.jpg

References

::In-line:

External links

Pałac pod Blachą
*http://www.zamek-krolewski.pl/?page=1212 {{Authority control Houses completed in 1730 Palaces in Warsaw Rococo architecture in Warsaw Rebuilt buildings and structures in Poland Baroque palaces in Poland 1730 establishments in Europe

History

Gallery

See also

References

External links