Herbst Palace

 

The Eduard Herbst Palace is a neo-Renaissance villa built in Lodz, probably according to the project of H. Majewski in 1875-1877. It was erected by order of the famous industrialist Karol Scheibler. The luxurious house was intended for his eldest daughter Matilda, who married Edward Herbst.

The place for the villa was chosen at the intersection of the current streets of Bishop V. Tymenetsky and Pshendzalnyaya, in the immediate vicinity of Scheibler's factory and the Ksendza Mill district, where working people lived. The rectangular two-story building had a hipped roof with a gazebo. In 1877, a ballroom was added to the villa on the east side, with a rectangular greenhouse adjoining it. The second outbuilding, intended for keeping horses and storing carriages, appeared on the territory of the palace complex in 1893. It was designed by local architect Adolf Zelingson.

The Herbst family owned this villa until the end of 1941. In those days, the owners' son Leon and his wife Alexandra lived here. This married couple moved from Lodz to Vienna in 1941. They took with them all the valuables and furnishings. Leon did not live to see the end of World War II, his wife returned to Lodz in peacetime, and then left for Berlin, where her trace was lost. In October 2013, she symbolically returned to the villa - here she was brought here, discovered in a private collection in Lodz, of her portrait by the German impressionist Fritz von Kamptz.

History
After the war, the villa complex was used by various state institutions. Many years of neglect and improper exploitation led to the devastation of the buildings. The residence of the Herbst family was taken over by the Museum of Art in Łódź in 1976. For almost fourteen years, a general renovation was carried out, combined with reconstruction of the interior and other conservation measures. In 1990, thanks to the efforts of the then director of the Museum, Ryszard Stanisławski, the palace was officially opened to the public as a branch of the Museum of Art in Łódź. At the same time, in the same year, the branch was honored with the Europa Nostra medal. It was the first medal awarded to the facility in Poland.

In 2012, in the Herbstów complex, in the building of the former carriage house, the Old Art Gallery was established. The creation of this gallery made it possible to prepare a long-awaited permanent exhibition presenting previously unseen art collections located in the warehouses of the Museum of Art. At the same time, in 2013, the Herbst Palace Museum became the first Polish museum that allowed people with visual impairments to visit the exhibition on their own. In the same year, the museum received the prestigious Sybilla Award.

In 2015, by order of the President of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Komorowski, the museum was awarded the title of Monument of History.

Since the establishment of the branch in 1990, the museum has been managed by its manager, Dorota Berbelska.