Wilanowle “Polish Versailles”

If the Palace of Versailles is located around twenty kilometers from Paris, its Polish counterpart is part of the Warsaw metropolitan area. Its ties to France date back to the love marriage of King John III Sobieski to the beautiful Marie-Casimire, one of the most famous Franco-Polish couples in history.

It all began when, on April 23, 1677, the village of Milanow became the property of the King of Poland, the great John III Sobieski, whose timely arrival under the walls of Vienna in 1683 saved Europe from a Turkish invasion. Shortly after, the place received a new name, Villa Nova, which transformed into Wilanow in Polish. Today it is a district southeast of Warsaw.

The first stone was laid in 1677. John III commissioned the Italian architect Agostino Locci, master of Baroque, to build a royal summer residence there. The project took place over twenty years. The victories won by the monarch allowed him to allocate more finances than those initially planned for the construction of the palace. The final result, with harmonious proportions, displays the characteristics of a Polish noble residence, an Italian villa, and a French palace in the Louis XIV style between courtyard and garden, of which Versailles is the ultimate culmination. The architectural and sculpted decorations of the facade, such as the triumphal arch and figures of ancient gods, allegorically celebrate the king's military and political successes, proclaim his claims to found a dynasty, and herald the golden age that should happen under the reign of the Sobieski family. It is therefore not only a royal residence but also a monument to the glory of John III, the spiritual heir of the Roman emperors.

A loving couple

Wilanow is home to the loves of John III and his French wife, Marie-Casimire-Louise de La Grange d'Arquien, whom the Poles call Marysienka. Daughter of a Nivernais gentleman, she accompanied as a lady-in-waiting Marie-Louise de Gonzague-Nevers, twice Queen of Poland. At sixteen, she married Grand Duke Jan Sobiepan Zamoyski and bore him four children, all of whom died in infancy. Becoming a widow in 1665, Marie-Casimire married her second wife the same year Jean Sobieski, madly in love with her. This era marks the beginning of a long period of strong influence of French culture in the country. In 1674, her husband was elected King of Poland as John III, largely due to his connections at court. They had around fifteen children, of whom only four survived. Very devout, Marie-Casimire spoke out against religious tolerance and was a supporter of absolute royal power, as in the France of Louis XIV. He is systematically criticized for his reckless spending and nepotism.

Often separated from her beloved husband for political reasons, she exchanged passionate correspondence with him, proof of the very strong feelings within this atypical couple for the time. She left Poland after the death of John III in 1696 and settled first in Rome, where she led a worldly life devoted to the arts, benefiting from the largesse of Pope Innocent XII. The death of her protector left her without means of support, Marie-Casimire returned to her native country and died in 1716 in Blois. Angered by the claims that she “was born my subject,” Louis XIV received the news of her arrival without enthusiasm and forbade her from setting foot in Versailles. According to the caustic verve of the Duke of Saint-Simon, “transported to see a crown on her head, she had an ardent passion to come and show it in her country, from which she had left so small”; however, he was made to understand that there was no parity between a hereditary queen and an elective queen. She is buried in Krakow, near Sobieski's grave in Wawel Cathedral.

Transformations of the palace

During the reign of John III, an enlightened lover of art and literature, the richly decorated apartments amazed visitors. The palace is surrounded by a large garden with fountains. The fish swim in two large ponds, near which two small round crystal pavilions are built. It is good to rest in the shade of fruit trees. The orange trees and vines are put in boxes and stored along a wall under a roof; in winter, the plants are covered and the place is heated by a stove.

Passing into the hands of the heirs of John III after his death, the palace was acquired in 1720 by Elzbieta Sieniawska, who completed the king's project by erecting the side wings. In 1730 it fell into the hands of Augustus II the Strong, King of Saxony and Poland, who resided there until he died in 1733. In 1778, the owner of Wilanow was Princess Izabela Lubomirska. She hired the best architects to add some neoclassical constructions and restore the palace to its former glory. His son-in-law, Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, created the first Polish museum there, open free to the public in 1805. The mausoleum of this patron and politician is still visible in the park.

In the 19th century, the Shah of Persia, during his visit to Warsaw, expressed the desire to visit Wilanow. As the Potockis were not well in court at the time, he was dissuaded from following through on his project. “But,” writes a French traveler who recounts the anecdote, “he did not want to give up, and they had to take him to this sumptuous residence. » The shah, pensive, walks through the apartments, full of memories of John III Sobieski, and exclaims: “Yes, this is indeed a royal residence, worthy of the great man who inhabited it. »

The last owners of the estate were the Branicki family before the State claimed it and recovered it as part of the agrarian reform. At the end of the Second World War, the city of Warsaw was nothing more than a field of ruins, but Wilanow Palace miraculously remains standing, having served as a barracks and hospital for German soldiers. Its treasures, scattered by the Nazis, are gradually being returned. After major work, the palace reopens to tourists. It serves as a filming location, notably for the feature film Marysia and Napoleon by Leonard Buczkowski in 1966. Since 2006, Wilanow has been a member of the Association of European Royal Residences (1), just like the Palace of Versailles.

Sumptuous apartments

The state apartments, which have regained their former splendor, preserve the memory of their illustrious occupants. The Grand Vestibule, the main room which served as a dining room during the time of John III, connects the areas inhabited by the king and queen. Some original stucco decorations have survived to this day, while the current appearance, in classical style, dates back to the last quarter of the 18th century, and the ceiling to the 19th century. On the other hand, English and French furniture is older.

The White Room, the most sumptuous, was created at the time of Augustus II the Strong. Large mirrors face the windows, creating an optical illusion. The metal plates of the two fireplaces bear the initials of the king, which is also present in painting and porcelain. This vast space was used as a ballroom.

During his stays in Wilanow, John III liked to take refuge in the library (2), where he assembled one of the largest collections of books of the 17th century. He frequently spoke there with the great minds of his time. The three-color marbles that cover the floor are the oldest in the palace. The tone on the ceiling, painted by the Frenchman Claude Callot, represents allegories of the main sciences in the spotlight in the 17th century, philosophy and theology, framed by medallion portraits of the great scientists and artists. The other paintings were made by Dutch, French, Flemish, and German artists. A collection of Chinese porcelain and European weapons from the 16th and 17th centuries is also on display.

In the King's bedroom, the ceiling painted by Jerzy Siemiginowski depicts the goddess Aurora in the guise of Marie-Casimire, easily recognizable. John III wanted to always have it above his bed... Between the ceiling and the walls, plump putti ride seahorses and dolphins, while rural scenes take place in the tondi. The furniture dates from the 18th century. Placed on a chest of drawers, a copy of the one made by the Boulle workshop for Cardinal Mazarin, the gilded silver tray was offered by the bourgeois of Krakow to John III for his victory in Vienna. Formerly, two paintings by Rembrandt were in this room. Taken to Dresden by Augustus II the Strong, their current location remains unknown.

The Queen's bedroom is a true gem of the baroque style. Putti rubs shoulders with sphinxes, amid scenes of country life. The furniture includes an original chest of drawers from the Boulle workshop dating from the early 18th century and Marie-Casimire’s toiletries. There too, the goddess Flora painted on the ceiling by Siemiginowski is none other than the queen herself. The sovereigns' rooms each have an antechamber, where the courtiers waited and exchanged news. All these rooms are hung with baroque tapestries in Genoa velvet. The iconographic program tends to glorify the virtues and benefits of the royal couple through the language of allegories.

In the north gallery, which connects the northern wing of the palace with the central building, Count Potocki set up a museum in 1820. The neighboring rooms were used to hang his beautiful collection of paintings. The frescoes in the north and south galleries, commissioned by John III from the Florentine artist Michelangelo Palloni, tell the story of Cupid and Psyche, an allusion to the romantic passion between the king and queen. One of the jewels of the museum is the equestrian portrait (3) of Stanislaw Kostka Potocki by Jacques-Louis David, painted in 1781. An imposing equestrian statue of John III Sobieski pays homage to the first master of the place. He is also commemorated in the chapel, built on the initiative of Aleksandra Potocka between 1852 and 1861 near the library, on the presumed site where the king breathed his last. The statue of the Virgin, the work of Italian sculptor Vincenzo Gaiassi, is inspired by Raphael's Sistine Madonna.

The Etruscan Cabinet was created after 1850 by Enrico and Leandro Marconi to house a collection of amphorae, the only one of its kind in Poland. It is made up, in addition to purchases, of the personal finds of Count Potocki during excavations at Nola, near Naples, around 1785. His grandson August added in 1853 some antique vases purchased from the Mikorski family. The floor imitates a mosaic, like in Roman villas.

To expand the museum's surface area, August Potocki transformed a three-room apartment into a picture gallery. There we discover paintings by several European masters, as well as display cases containing silverware, Meissen porcelain, and Dutch earthenware. The upper floor of the palace, temporarily closed to tourists, houses Count Potocki’s antiques cabinet, Princess Lubomirska’s apartments, “Chinese rooms” and two “hunting rooms”. The portrait gallery offers a real dive into the history of Poland through its great characters.

A remarkable park

Wilanow Park reflects John III’s passion for gardening. The king had books brought from Paris on the art of gardens and was inspired by the layout of Versailles. In his spare time, he took care of flowers and planted trees, to the great astonishment of those around him.

The current park covers 45 hectares and includes different spaces of varying styles: the orangery garden, the English landscaped park, the two-level geometric baroque garden, the Anglo-Chinese garden, and the rose garden. Visitors enter through a stone pergola which bears this quote from Horace: Ducite solicitae quam iucunda oblivia vitae (How sweet it is to forget the anxieties of life). Few original elements remain from the time of John III. Thus, in the Baroque garden, the gilded statues and marble vases disappeared, replaced in the 20th century by sandstone statues brought from Brzezinka Palace in Silesia. Their arrangement and mythological symbolism extol the virtues of the couple formed by John III and Marie-Casimire. The rose garden occupies the site where the Sobieski orchard once stood; a fountain depicting a boy with a swan is surrounded by flower beds. The Anglo-Chinese inspired garden, created at the end of the 18th century and transformed by Stanislaw Kostka Potocki, can be admired in its entirety from an artificial hillock, the “Mount of Bacchus”, a vestige of the time of John III. Water features, natural or artificial, reinforce the romantic atmosphere. Like other European parks, that of Wilanow offers walkers an aesthetic pleasure combined with that of the discovery of the "factories" scattered along the paths, whether it is a Chinese gazebo, a Roman bridge, or a neoclassical monument that commemorates the battle of Raszyn, delivered to the Austrians by the army of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw during the Napoleonic Wars. The variety of its shapes and the elegance of its decorative elements make the Wilanow Garden one of the most beautiful in Poland.

1• www.europeanroyalresidences.eu

2• Currently, this part of the palace is in poor condition, the last restoration dating back around sixty years and a water leak has damaged the ceiling in December 2020. In anticipation of the work, the paintings were removed.

3• Transported to Germany in 1939, then to the Soviet Union as a war trophy, this masterpiece returned to Poland in 1956.

Testimony from a prestigious visitor

Petr Andreevich Tolstoy, a Russian diplomat and ancestor of the writer Leo Tolstoy, visited Wilanow at the beginning of the 18th century: “The building is entirely made of stone; the palace is large, all the exterior walls are covered with beautiful stone reliefs; there are many apartments, from which you access a large garden. Above these apartments there are many others, decorated with precious colored wood, well worked in the middle of the walls. In all the rooms, the stoves are replaced by excellent alabaster or plaster fireplaces, which are magnificent Italian works. The ceilings are also made of alabaster or plaster, in relief, and there are many splendid Italian paintings. In two rooms, the floors are slate or pink marble. »

Description of the 19th-century

“It is by inheritance that the Potocka (sic), who have princely blood in their veins, came into possession of this magnificent estate. The castle church, which appears to be of recent date, should not be confused with the chapel. It is independent and, as an architecture, offers nothing extraordinary. The dome alone is imposing. [...] The main facade of the castle is revealed, and we are immediately struck by the remarkable proportions of this building, built largely by the Turkish prisoners that the winner had brought back. [...] On the two wings and the higher central pavilion, very decorative bas-reliefs represent the main battles in which Sobieski appeared. The vestibule is decorated with statues and tapestries, and we immediately pass into the king's apartments, preserved as such, with their furniture. " After listing the furniture and works of art present in the queen's cabinet and boudoir, the French traveler ascends by a small staircase to the first floor, "where beautiful collections of China and Japan, lacquers and porcelain, collected by the Counts Potocka (sic)”. He admires the picture gallery and a host of other art objects: “a fireplace surround from the London Exhibition; a round Roman mosaic table; other mosaic tables from Florence; a porphyry vase of large proportions; other ancient, Etruscan vases; a shield offered by the pope, etc. ". Proof if any were needed, that the museum created by Stanislaw Kostka Potocki and expanded by his descendants was one of the richest in Europe.