Page 9 - WILANÓW Palace and Park

Paweł Jaskanis

The Museum of the Palace in Wilanów is the guardian of monuments and memorial sites
associated with King John III Sobieski (1629–1696). In the national tradition, the genius loci
of Wilanów evokes the loftiest patriotic feelings and the formation of civic virtues at the service

to the Republic pro publico bono (for the common good). The memorabilia of the Sobieski
family would have not survived but for the special efforts of Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–
1821), who started collecting artefacts associated with John III in the empty palace. In 1799
Potocki founded one of the first Polish museums in Wilanów, and then – on 5 August 1805,

made it available to the general public. His grandson, August Potocki (1803–1867), continued
his important work.
In the times of the Partitions of Poland and the country’s lost independence, the institu-
tion established in Wilanów, along with other private museums, substituted non-existent state

museums. Education through the nation’s history and world art was extremely important at
that time and today is also one of the fundamental elements of the museum’s activity. Works
of European and Asian art forming the core of Potocki’s collection, offer an opportunity
for a systemic lesson on history and art.

The origins of the residence date back to the mid-17th c., when the construction of a palace
to the design of Giovanni Batista Gisleni was commissioned by Bogusław Leszczyński in the
village of Milanów. On 23 April 1677 King John III purchased Milanów, where the “walls
were built 3 ells above ground level”. Probably at that time the estate was given a new

name: Willanów (from the Italian term: villa nuova). Around ca. 1680 a brick manor-house,
with side annexes, not particularly impressive, was built on these foundations. In the years
1681–1696 a palace was built on the site in two stages to Agostino Locci’s design and
under his supervision. A team working at the palace consisted of Polish, Italian and French

craftsmen and artists. The most renowned were the sculptor Stefan Szwaner, and the paint-
ers Claude Callot, Jerzy Eleuter Szymonowicz-Siemiginowski, Jan Reisner, Michelangelo Pallo-
ni and Martin Altomonte.
The next owner of the Wilanów estate, Elżbieta Sieniawska (1666–1729), developed the

palace, adding two wings to Giovanni Spazzia’s design in the 1720s. The work was initiated
by Józef Fontana, and completed by Jan Zygmunt Deybel in the period during which the
palace was leased to King August II the Strong (1670–1733). Outstanding sculptors, includ-
ing Gianfrancesco Fumo and Jan Jerzy Plersch and the painter Giuseppe Rossi worked on
A bird’s eye view of the Palace
that project. A large group of artists under the painter Johann Samuel Mock, an outstanding in Wilanów (opposite)

Wilanów 7