Mała Wieś Palace

The palace sits on a simple rectangular footprint and rises two main storeys above a cellarled basement. Erected in the late eighteenth century in the neoclassical manner then in fashion, the main block was originally linked to four substantial side pavilions by single-storey galleries; those pavilions were detached from the central body in the early nineteenth century. A foundation stone bearing the date 1783 lies in the basement, and a wooden board marking the family’s arrival in 1786 survives in a doorway recess.

The principal street-facing front is dominated by a deep portico reached by a carriage drive and supported on eight columns, its pediment carrying the founder’s coat of arms. On the garden side a projecting central section, or risalit, has its own pediment displaying both the founder’s heraldry and the arms of a connected family. The external façades retain these heraldic devices as prominent sculpted details.

The main floor held the public day rooms, private cabinets and the family library. Above it, eight rooms retain original mural painting schemes and named interiors survive with their decorative programs intact: the Hall of the Sages displays painted portraits of classical authors and thinkers; the Pompeian Hall is covered in grotesque frescoes that mix floral-human hybrids with scenes from Greek myth and include visible Masonic signs; the Warsaw Dining Room contains a painted panorama of the city seen from the Praga bank and a separate panorama of Naples with Mount Vesuvius. Other principal spaces include a Golden Salon, a Gray Salon, an apartment for the prince and the palace bathing room.

Several decorated circulation and ceremonial spaces survive. The entrance hall contains a statue of the philosopher Diogenes. The stairwell is lined with panoplia, that is Roman-style armour and weaponry displayed as decorative motifs, and bears a central Latin inscription reading “DISCITE VICTURI PATRUM POST FATA NEPOTES VELLE DEO PATRIAE VIVERE VELLE MORI,” accompanied by the founder’s coat of arms and the insignia of the Order of the White Eagle. The staircase is finished with a modernist crystal chandelier installed in a later period.

The grounds preserve a three-part garden scheme. A formal French garden lies on the palace axis with parterres, straight alleys and enclosed bosquets. Beyond it an English-style park opens out around a large pond containing two islets and incorporates built features, including a white entrance gate that leads toward Belsk and a family mausoleum erected by a member of the founding household. A formerly separate fruit garden contains the orchard where the first modern apple trees for the Grójec area were introduced. Later changes to the service complex include the replacement of a 1960s reception pavilion by a new multipurpose Orangery building, internal decoration in that addition that echoes the Pompeian Hall, conversion of four former service outbuildings into guest rooms and the adaptation of the Carriage House as a restaurant.

A major conservation campaign between 2013 and 2016 repaired and adapted the ensemble for contemporary use while conserving many original wall paintings and decorative schemes. Numerous frescoes and interior ornaments remain in situ and have been conserved as part of the building’s conversion to hospitality and reception functions.