Royal Łazienki Museum
The Palace on the Isle, surrounded by water and the Łazienki Park’s gardens, is one of the finest examples of its kind in 18th-century European architecture. From the 1770s, the Royal Łazienki was the beloved private residence of the last king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanislaw August Poniatowski. A lover of Catherine the Great, this controversial statesman, whose reign ended in 1795 with the partition of Poland, was at the same time one of the greatest and most active patrons of the arts. Marc Fumaroli, a French art historian, described his reign as ‘a masterpiece of the Enlightenment’.
After the king’s death in 1798, the majority of his paintings were sold by his heirs. About 150 of them are still at the Łazienki — where the monarch amassed the real gems of his collection. Many paintings, however, left Poland and found their way into the world’s most distinguished museums, namely The State Hermitage in St Petersburg, The Wallace Collection in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, as well as into lesser-known ones.
L: Girolamo Pesci, “Venus Resting with Cupid”, R: Anthony van Dyck, “Jackqueline van Caestre”
In her upcoming lecture at the Frick in New York, Dorota Juszczak, Curator of Paintings at Muzeum Łazienki Królewskie, will discuss the character of the collection, its arrangement in the Łazienki Palace, and present some of its highlights, such as Fragonard’s The Stolen Kiss at the Hermitage, and the Polish Rider — one of the most mysterious and yet most famous paintings by Rembrandt — at the Frick Collection.
“Stanisław August Poniatowski’s Collection: A Gallery or a Cabinet?”, Dorota Juszczak, Royal Łazienki Museum, Warsaw
Wednesday, March 18, 6:00 pm
The Frick Collection
1 East 70th Street, New York, NY 10021
Free, but online registration is required. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.
Visit frick.org for details and to register.
This lecture will also be broadcast live, and then archived on the Frick’s website.
