Exhibition: ”The History of the Golden Sun House"
The Pan Tadeusz Museum is located in the Golden Sun House in Wrocław's Rynek. The building now features in a temporary exhibition on display in courtyard of the Ossoliński Gallery.
The Pan Tadeusz Museum is located in the Golden Sun House in Wrocław's Rynek. The building now features in a temporary exhibition on display in courtyard of the Ossoliński Gallery.
Royal residence
The Golden Sun House is one of the three houses in the western frontage of Wrocław's Rynek that used to be a royal residence in the past. From the 15th until the 18th century, kings and emperors who visited Wrocław to accept a tribute from the city and the entire region of Lower Silesia, would give up their modest headquarters in the castle (now supplanted with the Wrocław University main building) for the luxury and opulence of the local patricians.
Awe-inspiring interiors
Particularly intriguing are the interiors: a drawing room with a plafond representing Juno in a chariot (most probably the cryptic portrait of Empress Maria Theresa, the last Habsburg ruler of Silesia) and chambers ornamented with 17th-century wooden ceilings covered with frivolous paintings. A 15th century brick safe, which was quite unique in bourgeois houses of the time, serves as a intriguing remain of the wealth and opulence of the building's owners. The safe was installed by the Boner family, who were merchants and bankers and business partners with many a king, including the Polish king Sigismund I the Old.
Festung Breslau
The house, which survived the siege of Festung Breslau relatively unscathed performed a number of different functions after the war as it housed the Society for the Polish-Soviet Friendship and Cooperation, the Dom Książki academic antiquarian bookshop, a second-hand shop, the Medallion Art Museum (now part of the Wrocław City Museum) and a bookshop. From April 2016, the building houses the Pan Tadeusz Museum, which showcases the history and interpretations of Adam Mickiewicz's opus magnum, and also features studios of two eminent Witnesses to History: Jan Nowak-Jeziorański and Władysław Bartoszewski.
Exhibition
The board exhibition on the history of the Golden Sun House is on display in the courtyard of the Ossoliński Gallery by May 2017. The exhibition is accompanied by a brochure on the history of the building.
Written by: Beata Maciejewska
