Originalveröffentlichung in: The Connoisseur 182 (1973), Nr. 731, S. 15-24 Princess Isabel and the Czartoryski Museum ZDZISLAW ZYGULSKI JR. ORE than at any other time the 1970s is the decade of and signs of the fallen state which were carried away as trophies M museums. But few can lay claim to such a distinguished or even destroyed. Such was also the fate of the Polish crown genealogy, deliberate conception and diversity of valuable jewels which consisted of insignia and ornaments used for objects as the Czartoryski Museum which is now a department official acts of sovereignty, particularly those used for coronation of the National Museum in Cracow. At the establishment of the purposes. As state property they had been housed since the Czartoryski Collection lay the idea of an 'ark', a simple method fourteenth century in the Royal Castle of Wawcl in Cracow. of rescuing as many national treasures as possible which were They were captured by the Prussians in 1795 when they threatened by the grave disturbances suffered by Poland at the temporarily occupied the city before allowing it to pass into end of the eighteenth century. The final partition of Poland Austrian hands. between three neighbouring powers - Russia, Prussia and After King Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski's abdication and Austria - caused a real danger for numerous art objects, symbols the abolition of the Polish official authorities a number of private 1 1. Princess Isabel Czartoryska. Mezzotint by Guiseppe Marchi, published in London, 1777. 2. Sibyl's Temple alPulawy. Aquatint by F. Ch. Dietrich, 1807. IS persons started a movement for salvaging works of national and Stratford­on­Avon, and bought there for the sum of 20 guineas historic importance. The idea of creating a museum was taken up an oak chair traditionally said to be connected with the poet. by Princess Isabel Czartoryska, a lady of wit, charm and passion This was to be one of the first exhibits for the future museum. (No. i). In 1761, at the age of 15, she married Prince Adam The results of the Princess's awakening passion for collecting Casimir Czartoryski, a descendent of a powerful aristocratic were amazingly rich. From a member of the Hamilton family family, members of which fought for reforms and reconstruction she purchased a portrait of Mary Stuart attributed to Francois of a corrupted political system. Adam Casimir put up by his Quesncl; at the William Rawlc sale in London she acquired a ambitious father, Augustus Czartoryski, as a candidate to the powder­horn which had originally belonged to King Henry VIII; Polish throne resigned this in 1764 in favour of his first cousin and relics connected with Oliver Cromwell. From Captain Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski, backed by Catherine the Great. Cook's sister she bought the sword of the famous explorer. Czartoryski disappointed in a great career turned to his beloved The Princess was enchanted by the early Romantic Movement scientific and bibliophilic preoccupations, gathering in a which she encountered at every step. Reading the Ossianic considerably short time an enormous library of books, manu­ ballads she could confront them immediately with the real scripts, prints and maps. charms of the English and Scottish countries, their parks, castles Princess Isabel spent her young days mostly in travelling, and cathedrals, all with venerable relics. This journey, more than visiting firstly European courts where she indulged in the any other, inspired her imagination and determined her life alluring world of gallantry, but being always sensitive to art and mission. The true metamorphosis of her personality came some poetry, fascinated by philosophers of Enlightenment, attracted years later, after the shock of Poland's fall. A lady for whom by deistic and masonic creeds. She took the opportunity of enjoying life was the only purpose changed into an ardent patriot meeting Madame Geoffrin and Jean Jacques Rousseau, and, obsessed by the idea of rescuing her fatherland's past glories being acquainted with Johann Caspar Lavater, kept up an exten­ embodied in material documents and relics. sive correspondence with him. In 1790 Isabel, accompanied by One of the Czartoryski residences was at Pulawy, a town her son Adam Gcorg, made a tour through England and between Warsawand Lublin in the heartof Poland. A magnificent Scotland, stopping in London, Windsor, Oxford, Salisbury palace erected there in the late seventeenth century contained (with an excursion to Stonehenge), and Edinburgh. As a devoted one part of the family treasures and also the library, referred to admirer of Shakespeare she saw the house where he was born at above, collected by the Prince Adam Casimir. In Pulawy park, i-sr-r-SSr, r* f 3. The 'Augury Shield' of King John III Sobieski, Italian c. 1590. 16 4. Hetman M. H. Sicniawski's scale armour from the time of the Vienna expedition, 1683. 'V JK close to the palace, on the high bank of the Vistula river, a place respected as a good prophetess taking care of the state, and was was chosen by Isabel to found the first Polish national museum, a especially popular in the old Poland after modelling herself on Sibyl's Temple (No. 2). The court architect, Piotr Aigner, was the creeds and customs as practised by the Romans. The Temple ordered to create a structure which faithfully copied in form the itself, with one large round hall, ensured the classic rule of the ancient Roman temple preserved in part ruins at Tivoli, but on a three unities: of place, time and action. The visitor entering the larger scale. It was a rotunda with eighteen Corinthian-Composite hall was arrested by the view of gorgeous objects surrounding columns, having one large room lighted from the top through a him on all sides. Motionless he could admire the exhibition, crystal window set in the dome. There was also a subterranean receiving intensified impressions. crypt in the building. In front of the Temple, above its portal, The still existing Sibyl's Temple at Pulawy and the objects the laconic motto Przeszlosc Przyszlosci ('Past for the Future') preserved in Cracow along with detailed topographic catalogues instructed the visitor about the principal task of the museum. and descriptions, make it easy to reconstruct mentally the first The idea of Sibyl had an antique origin. She had always been Polish museum. It was really arranged as the museum-sanctuary 17 5 a, b and c. Left to right. Silver South German cup c. 1600. Silver nef, by Esaias zur Linden, Niirnberg early seventeenth century. Silver Ostrich cup, by Georg Hoffman of Wroclaw c. 1600 (from the Ostrogski Treasury). Colour plates Above. Rembrandt. Landscape with the Good Samaritan. Below left. Turkish saddle captured at Vienna in 1683 by Hetman M. H. Sieniawski. s&0 Below right. Leonardo da Vinci. Lady with the Ermine. combining some pagan and some Christian traditions. The dukes, and great hetmans. There were also relics of people who central part was occupied by an 'altar' of granite block on which deserved the highest esteem in the field of science and literature - the 'Royal Casket' was laid. It contained many relics belonging those of Copernicus from his supposed grave at the Frombork to the kings, chiefly jewels but also portrait miniatures, fragments Cathedral and those of Kochanowski, the most eminent poet of costumes and various attributes, some of them removed from of the sixteenth century. Small urns carrying commemorating the royal tombs in Cracow. The apse in front of the altar was inscriptions were designed for the relics. The subterranean crypt filled with panoplies and trophies, among others two swords was decorated with shields of honour made of gilded bronze commemorating the battle of Grunwald of 1410 and the banners dedicated to Polish soldiers and military leaders. After 1813 there captured by Polish kings and hetmans in wars against the was also erected a monument of black marble for Prince Joseph Germans, Austrians, Muscovites and Turks. A place of honour Poniatowski, commander-in-chief of the Polish Army fighting was given to the famous shield of chiselled iron representing the for independence under the banners of Napoleon I. Poniatowski victory of Constantine the Great over Maxcntius, a work of met his heroic death in the battle of Leipzig. In the time of the Italian armourers of the late sixteenth century, donated to the great Napoleonic wars, when the hope of freedom roused the King John III Sobieski before his Vienna expedition 1683 as a Polish people to action, Sibyl's Temple became a rich source of sign of good omen (No. 3). After the victory it has been called inspiration and a natural place where trophies were deposited. the 'Augury Shield'. A very considerable part of'Vienna bounty' It is hard to find another example of such a strong influence of a fell to the share of hetman M. H. Sieniawski (No. 4), and then museum on the current life and political conscience of a nation. by the right of succession came into Czartoryski hands (see Unusually proud of the success of the Temple, Princess Isabel colour plate). Finally it found the way to Sibyl's Temple. Turkish was still unsatisfied in her ambition. She had acquired a lot of arms, armour and equipment were displayed on the walls or in objects from abroad which could not be enclosed in the pantheon large semicircular cupboards. They were not the ordinary of Polish history. There were not only the souvenirs of her military arms but were items of craftsmanship of the highest extensive travels but also considerable acquisitions made at her value, undoubtedly products of the imperial workshops of request by friends and agents in various parts of Europe and Istanbul.