Palace in Sanniki

The Palace in Sanniki in Sanniki, Poland, is a registered town monument whose main form belongs to the late nineteenth century and which presents the character of an Italian villa. Built and altered by successive estate owners, the site gained historical note when the composer Fryderyk Chopin visited the earlier manor here in 1828. The ensemble later became an important local landmark and was preserved as part of the town’s cultural heritage.

From the late eighteenth century the Pruszak family managed the Sanniki estate, taking responsibility for its lands from 1789 and later purchasing the property outright in 1834. During the first half of the nineteenth century a manor belonging to the Pruszak family stood on this site; that house is the one Chopin is known to have visited in 1828. In 1858 Aleksander Ksawery Pruszak sold the estate together with its sugar factory to Selig Natansohn, beginning a period of ownership by the Natansohn/Natanson family.

The principal building that stands today most likely dates to the second half of the nineteenth century, probably the 1880s, a period that may be linked to the business activity around Jakub Natanson’s 1882 founding of a joint-stock company of sugar factories. Dates assigned to the palace vary; it is often given as 1880 or, more commonly, as 1910, while suggestions of an origin at the end of the eighteenth century or in the early nineteenth century are unlikely. In 1909 the estate passed by dowry into the hands of Stefan Dziewulski through his marriage to Antonina Maria née Natanson.

In the early twenty-first century the palace and its park underwent repair and adaptation between 2011 and 2013, followed by renovation and conversion to a cultural institution. With funding from regional authorities and the local commune under the Masovian Regional Operational Programme, the complex was adapted to house the European Artistic Centre dedicated to Fryderyk Chopin and was opened to the public on 20 September 2014.