Muzeum Rzemiosł Artystycznych i Precyzyjnych, Warsaw

Muzeum Rzemiosł Artystycznych i Precyzyjnych is the craft museum on Piekarska Street in Warsaw’s Old Town, also widely known as the Clock Museum. Notice the decorative clock built into the townhouse façade: it sounds the opening bars of a song set to a poem by Maria Konopnicka. The museum began in nineteen sixty-six through the initiative of members of Warsaw’s guild of goldsmiths, clockmakers, opticians, engravers, and workers in bronze.

Clocks are the heart of the collection, ranging from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. The holdings include wall clocks, mantel clocks, pocket watches, and mechanical devices that make music. They also preserve the working world around them: clockmakers’ tools, medals, decorations, optical glass, silverwork, sculpture, and small cast plaques, alongside examination pieces made by Warsaw craftspeople.

The house itself was built in the mid nineteenth century and rebuilt through craftspeople’s contributions after wartime destruction. On the western face at ground level, an exposed stretch of the former defensive wall survives within the façade. The clock was made collectively by Jan Goraj, W. Zaleski, and the Osiński brothers; Wacław Makowski created its dial and the zodiac mosaic surrounding it.