ITP 6: Stanislaus II of Poland by Marcello Bacciarelli
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The man in the fur-trimmed robe with the apprehensive expression on his face was Poland’s last King – “a man of extraordinary merit,” according to Voltaire, “who at every turn in his life and in every dangerous situation, always moved quickly, and well, and with success.” Voltaire was not entirely right on that last point (see below) but Stanislaus was certainly a brave and extraordinary man. He was also, as his portrait-painter saw, something of a dreamer; and it was out of the wreckage of Stanislaus’s fondest dream, of creating a strong and independent Poland, that, in a roundabout sort of way, the Dulwich Picture Gallery was born.
He was born in 1732, the sixth child of a distinguished aristocrat and military commander. His mother was a religious nonconformist, to whose influence he later ascribed his own intellectual restlessness and proneness to melancholy. Relentlessly schooled in his youth, he later said that “I was, you might say, never allowed the time to be a child; it is as if one took the month of April out of the year”. Sent on the Grand Tour to complete his education, he visited Paris, Versailles and England, where he struck Lord Chesterfield as highly unnatural on the grounds that, unlike most young bloods abroad, he observed and recorded all that he saw with meticulous care. From England Stanislaus went to St Petersburg, where he conducted a passionate love affair with Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna which was to prove both his making and his undoing. The affair ended when Stanislaus was called away to Poland in 1758. Meanwhile Catherine consoled herself by marrying the future Tsar Peter III, seizing power herself and becoming Catherine the Great. In 1763 she used her influence to ensure that her former lover was elected to the Polish throne.
Good King Stanislaus began his reign full of optimism and determined to re-assert Polish sovereignty, but soon found that his actual powers were narrowly circumscribed. Russia, Prussia and Austria were all powerfully opposed to his ambition to create a strong Polish state, while within Poland itself he was suspected of harbouring absolutist ambitions. Civil war was followed by foreign intervention, the first partition of Poland and the establishment of Russian rule. Catherine the Great may still have had fond feelings for her former lover, but business was business.
Unable to pursue his political ambitions directly, Stanislaus devoted himself to educational reform and artistic patronage. If Poland could not be great in reality, the illusion of greatness would have to do. He created a hall of Polish heroes in the royal castle in Warsaw, as well as an entirely new royal residence at Lazienki modelled on Versailles. He founded new schools and made the study of Polish history and literature compulsory. He also hired the painter Francis Bourgeois and the art dealer Noel Desenfans, both based in London, to acquire masterpieces of all periods. These, he hoped, would form the basis of a national art collection, and encourage native Polish artists to bring their work up to the standard of the Old Masters.
The expatriate Roman artist Marcello Bacciarelli’s portrait of a melancholy and nervous Stanislaus was painted in 1793, shortly after the second great disappointment of the King’s life. The year before, a Polish uprising had been crushed by an alliance of Russia and Prussia and the country partitioned once more. Stanislaus, who had dared to compose a new constitution for his briefly free countrymen, knew that his days were numbered. Bacciarelli’s portrait was teasingly described by the King as an allegory of his predicament, and although some elements remain mysterious its general meaning is clear enough. The barely legible Latin inscription carved into the front edge of the desk is from the Aeneid and may be translated as “He sought the light”. The use of the past tense was appropriate. The Enlightenment monarch looks up towards the sun while all around him shadows encroach. His crown, which lies before before him, encircles an hour glass, on which he has placed one hand. The sands are running out.
In 1794 Stanislaus was forced to abdicate. He spent the remaining four years of his life in St Petersburg, confined within the comfortable prison of the Marble Palace by the polite but inflexible Tsar Paul I, Catherine the Great’s son. Meanwhile, in London, Stanislaus’s art collectors, Desenfans and Bourgeois, found themselves in possession of a remarkable hoard of masterpieces intended for Poland – but not paid for, nor ever likely to be. Desnfans hoped that the collection might form the basis of a British National Gallery, but the government showed little interest. After his death in 1811, Desenfans’s widow and his former partner Bourgeois gave the pictures to Dulwich College. Soane, who was commissioned to create a suitable building to house them, produced his faintly morbid and mausoleum-like masterpiece of an art musem – and the rest, as they say, is history. Stanislaus would doubtless have been disappointed, but he might not have been entirely horrified. He was after all a lifelong anglophile who modelled his gardens at Lazienki on those at Stowe and who based his Polish constitution on the pragmatic English political system.
Doubtless they drank a toast to HM Queen Elizabeth II when she was in Dulwich on Thursday. But let’s not forget to raise a glass to Poland’s last King too. Naz drowie!
Date: 28-05-2000
Owning Institution: The Dulwich Picture Gallery, courtesy the National Museum, Warsaw
Publication:
Sunday Telegraph “In The Picture”
Subject:
18th Century
Three days ago one of London’s most beautiful small museums was reopened by the Queen after nearly two years of renovation and building work. The Dulwich Picture Gallery, designed by Sir John Soane in 1811, houses a rich collection including Rembrandt’s Girl Leaning on a Windowsill, Claude Lorrain’s Jacob with Laban and His Daughters and Watteau’s Les Plaisirs du Bal. So this week’s choice of picture – which is none of the above but, instead, Marcello Bacciarelli’s portrait of Stanislaus II of Poland, currently to be found about a thousand miles east of Dulwich in the National Museum in Warsaw – requires some explanation.
The man in the fur-trimmed robe with the apprehensive expression on his face was Poland’s last King – “a man of extraordinary merit,” according to Voltaire, “who at every turn in his life and in every dangerous situation, always moved quickly, and well, and with success.” Voltaire was not entirely right on that last point (see below) but Stanislaus was certainly a brave and extraordinary man. He was also, as his portrait-painter saw, something of a dreamer; and it was out of the wreckage of Stanislaus’s fondest dream, of creating a strong and independent Poland, that, in a roundabout sort of way, the Dulwich Picture Gallery was born.
He was born in 1732, the sixth child of a distinguished aristocrat and military commander. His mother was a religious nonconformist, to whose influence he later ascribed his own intellectual restlessness and proneness to melancholy. Relentlessly schooled in his youth, he later said that “I was, you might say, never allowed the time to be a child; it is as if one took the month of April out of the year”. Sent on the Grand Tour to complete his education, he visited Paris, Versailles and England, where he struck Lord Chesterfield as highly unnatural on the grounds that, unlike most young bloods abroad, he observed and recorded all that he saw with meticulous care. From England Stanislaus went to St Petersburg, where he conducted a passionate love affair with Grand Duchess Catherine Alekseyevna which was to prove both his making and his undoing. The affair ended when Stanislaus was called away to Poland in 1758. Meanwhile Catherine consoled herself by marrying the future Tsar Peter III, seizing power herself and becoming Catherine the Great. In 1763 she used her influence to ensure that her former lover was elected to the Polish throne.
Good King Stanislaus began his reign full of optimism and determined to re-assert Polish sovereignty, but soon found that his actual powers were narrowly circumscribed. Russia, Prussia and Austria were all powerfully opposed to his ambition to create a strong Polish state, while within Poland itself he was suspected of harbouring absolutist ambitions. Civil war was followed by foreign intervention, the first partition of Poland and the establishment of Russian rule. Catherine the Great may still have had fond feelings for her former lover, but business was business.
Unable to pursue his political ambitions directly, Stanislaus devoted himself to educational reform and artistic patronage. If Poland could not be great in reality, the illusion of greatness would have to do. He created a hall of Polish heroes in the royal castle in Warsaw, as well as an entirely new royal residence at Lazienki modelled on Versailles. He founded new schools and made the study of Polish history and literature compulsory. He also hired the painter Francis Bourgeois and the art dealer Noel Desenfans, both based in London, to acquire masterpieces of all periods. These, he hoped, would form the basis of a national art collection, and encourage native Polish artists to bring their work up to the standard of the Old Masters.
The expatriate Roman artist Marcello Bacciarelli’s portrait of a melancholy and nervous Stanislaus was painted in 1793, shortly after the second great disappointment of the King’s life. The year before, a Polish uprising had been crushed by an alliance of Russia and Prussia and the country partitioned once more. Stanislaus, who had dared to compose a new constitution for his briefly free countrymen, knew that his days were numbered. Bacciarelli’s portrait was teasingly described by the King as an allegory of his predicament, and although some elements remain mysterious its general meaning is clear enough. The barely legible Latin inscription carved into the front edge of the desk is from the Aeneid and may be translated as “He sought the light”. The use of the past tense was appropriate. The Enlightenment monarch looks up towards the sun while all around him shadows encroach. His crown, which lies before before him, encircles an hour glass, on which he has placed one hand. The sands are running out.
In 1794 Stanislaus was forced to abdicate. He spent the remaining four years of his life in St Petersburg, confined within the comfortable prison of the Marble Palace by the polite but inflexible Tsar Paul I, Catherine the Great’s son. Meanwhile, in London, Stanislaus’s art collectors, Desenfans and Bourgeois, found themselves in possession of a remarkable hoard of masterpieces intended for Poland – but not paid for, nor ever likely to be. Desnfans hoped that the collection might form the basis of a British National Gallery, but the government showed little interest. After his death in 1811, Desenfans’s widow and his former partner Bourgeois gave the pictures to Dulwich College. Soane, who was commissioned to create a suitable building to house them, produced his faintly morbid and mausoleum-like masterpiece of an art musem – and the rest, as they say, is history. Stanislaus would doubtless have been disappointed, but he might not have been entirely horrified. He was after all a lifelong anglophile who modelled his gardens at Lazienki on those at Stowe and who based his Polish constitution on the pragmatic English political system.
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