“DUNĐERSKI” CASTLE AND PARK – Čelarevo

“DUNĐERSKI” CASTLE AND PARK – Čelarevo

In 1967, Čelarevo Castle was placed at the disposal of the Museum of Vojvodina for its use and management. Set within a park, the castle was built in the Classicist style. It was commissioned by the Hungarian nobleman Nikola Bezeredi between 1834 and 1837, to designs by the architects Aman and Hofman. From 1882 until the Second World War, it belonged to the renowned Dunđerski family. After the war, it was nationalised and used for official state functions.

During the second half of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries, the castle was visited by numerous distinguished figures from public life and the arts. Among them were Nikola Tesla, Paja Jovanović, Stevan Todorović and Laza Kostić. Kostić wrote his celebrated love poem Santa Maria della Salute in honour of Lenka Dunđerski, whom he had met at the castle. The poem is regarded as one of the finest love poems in Serbian literature.

The building was designed as a country summer residence in the Neoclassical style of the early nineteenth century. In 1968, the Museum of Vojvodina established a permanent exhibition there, displaying period furniture and applied art objects collected from across Vojvodina. The exhibits represented styles ranging from the Baroque and Rococo to Art Nouveau and Neoclassicism. Today, the restored furniture is housed at the Museum of Vojvodina in Novi Sad.

The smaller, or Old, Castle is a single-storey building with a rectangular ground plan, situated to the left of the park entrance. In 1798, a porch was added on the courtyard side, supported by slender wooden columns with decoratively carved capitals. The street-facing façade features a shallow projecting section with three windows. The main façade is adorned with a portico comprising four Doric columns, a pediment and a flight of steps. There are four windows on either side of the main façade, each topped with a flat, moulded lintel supported by brackets. Beneath the windows are rectangular recesses, each containing a row of six baluster-shaped ornaments. The larger castle is set within a French-style formal garden at the front and an English-style landscape garden at the rear.

In 2000 and 2003, restoration work was carried out on the castle’s furniture and the exterior façade of the building. In 1970, the castle was designated a cultural monument of exceptional importance and placed under state protection.

Text adapted from A Guide to the Museums and Galleries of Vojvodina, by Vladimir Mitrović and Lidija Mustedanagić.

NATURE PARK

The park surrounding Čelarevo Castle is one of the most valuable examples of nineteenth-century garden design in Serbia. It is a typical example of the mixed style that dominated garden design during that period, combining elements of the French and English traditions.

The park was established on the foundations of a natural stand of indigenous vegetation, as evidenced by the surviving elm and oak trees, together with other naturally occurring tree species. In 1968, the castle and its surrounding park were entrusted to the care and management of the Museum of Vojvodina, and the park at Čelarevo was formally granted protected status.

The castle is not open to visitors.

17 Proleterska Street, Čelarevo
+381 (0)21 420-566
[email protected]
www.dvorcisrbije.rs/dvorad-bezeredi-dundjerski-celarevo/

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