Logo
  • Register
  • Login
    •  
      Język Polski   English
    baner
    Published : 2024-06-11
    Vol. 72 No. 4 (2024)

    Tapestries of King Stanisław August Poniatowski

    Agnieszka Bender

    https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0432-7436

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rh24724-5

    Abstract

    This article poses two research questions: What do we know about the tapestries in the collection of the last king of Poland? Has anything from this collection survived?

    Unfortunately, there are many gaps in the knowledge of the last Polish king's tapestry that are difficult to fill, due to gaps in source material and few surviving objects. In conclusion, it must be said that, unlike his royal predecessors, Stanisław August, despite several initiatives, most of which did not live to be realised, showed very little interest in tapestries. His decisions were also shaky in this regard. Several factors can be mentioned that seem to have contributed to this state of affairs. Firstly, tapestries were still very expensive, the king and the Commonwealth constantly faced financial problems. Secondly, despite some pressure from Madame Geoffrin, Poniatowski sensed that tapestries, as a desirable element of the interior design of royal residences for centuries, were gradually falling out of fashion, being displaced by the “à la grecque” style, to which wall upholstery made of lightweight and cheaper silk damask was more suited.

    Three objects relating to the subject in question have survived:

    — a design of tapestry for the King's Bedroom, Paris, 1766, Warsaw – Royal Castle, Victor Louis;
    — tapestry, portrait of King Jan III Sobieski, Poland, 1860s (?), National Museum in Warsaw, workshop of François Glaize;
    — tapestry, fireplace screen with the coat of arms of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, Slonim, 1788, National Museum in Warsaw, workshop of Johan Carl Kletsch.

    Keywords:

    tapestries, king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, Royal Castle in Warsaw, François Glaize, Victor Louis, Jan III Sobieski, Madame Geoffrin, Johan Carl Kletsch



    Details

    References

    Statistics

    Authors

    Download files

    pdf (Język Polski)

    Altmetric indicators


    Cited by / Share


    Licence


    Roczniki Humanistyczne · ISSN 0035-7707 | eISSN 2544-5200 | DOI: 10.18290/rh
    © The Learned Society of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin & The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Humanities


    Articles are licensed under a Creative Commons  Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)