Romantic Castle

Post card published ca. 1930, it depicts the Small Romantic Castle erected in 1807 for duchess Izabella Lubomirska nee Czartoryska. It was created according to a design by Chrystian Piotr Aigner as a result of refurbishment of a historic structure erected most likely by architect Jan Griesmayer after 1795. The Small Castle was built at the so-called imperial route, most likely where the former Głuchów tower (an observation tower), used as a guard tower of the city, was located. It is built as a small masonry building, partly surrounded by a moat, with an attached round, two-level keep. In tone with the spirit and the aesthetics of the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, it was used as a kind of pavilion providing some independence and solitude to the exalted guests residing in it, and allowed better contact with the nature that surrounded it – hence, it was a place of contemplation, of respite, as perceived in the spirit of Romanticism. The stucco interior decoration was Aigner’s co-worker, Fryderyk Bauman. In the 19th century the Small Castle was used i. e. as the house of the gardeners taking care of the park. The baroque revival entry gate bearing the initials of the third ordinary, count Roman Potocki, standing in front of it, was erected during works covering the reconstruction of the entire palace and park between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. The photograph was taken from the direction of the Trześnik road, leading to the railway station. Joanna Kluz