Branicki Versailles in Białystok

Between 1728 and 1752, Jan Klemens Branicki (1689-1771), Great Crown Hetman of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and his wife Izabella Poniatowska (1730-1808), sister of the last elected king, transformed their family residence in Białystok into a French-style "entre cour et jardin" palace, inspired by the palace of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska at Versailles, as well as the Saxon Palace in Warsaw. The former 16th-century Wiesiołowski Castle, rebuilt between 1691 and 1697 for Hetman's father by the Dutch-born architect Tylman Gamerski, was rebuilt in the late Baroque style and enlarged by the royal architects Johann Sigmund Deybel, Johann Heinrich Klemm, and Jakub Fontana, as well as the French architect Pierre Ricaud de Tirregaille.

The interior decoration was carried out by stucco artists Samuel Contesse and Antoni Vogt, painters such as Szymon Czechowicz, Louis Marteau, Augustyn Mirys and Jean Pillement, as well as fresco painters such as Georg Wilhelm Neunhertz and Antoni Herliczka. Several splendid sculptures adorning the entrance, garden and staircase were created by Johann Chrysostomus Redler.

The complex was completed by other structures, such as the Białystok Town Hall, built between 1745 and 1761, the Branicki Guest Palace and the Convent of the Sisters of Charity.

During the Russian partition, the palace was stripped of its furnishings. Trees and shrubs were transported to the tsarist residences, and more than twenty sculptures from the garden were taken to St. Petersburg. In 1826, the sculptures and ornaments of the facade, as well as the Baroque domes, were removed. In 1841, a tsarist decree established a boarding school for young ladies of Russian high society, and the remaining statues were removed from the palace garden so that the naked sculptures would not corrupt the residents.

During World War I, the palace served as a field hospital. In 1944, 70% of the building was destroyed by the retreating Germans. Much of what remained was destroyed that same year by the Red Army. The palace was rebuilt between 1946 and 1960, and again after 1990, reflecting its 18th-century appearance. The Town Hall tower, also destroyed during the war, was rebuilt between 1954 and 1958.

The original late Baroque furnishings and frescoes can still be admired in the so-called Old Church, founded by Piotr Wiesiołowski and built between 1617 and 1625. The Palace Museum, as well as the Branicki summer residence in Choroszcz, presents original paintings, faithful reconstructions and furniture from the period.

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© Marcin Latka