Maria Wirtemberska

Portrait of Duchess Louis of Württemberg The miniature depicts a young woman, shown from the hips upwards, sitting in an armchair in a free position, looking straight ahead. The portrait is set against a dark blue sky covered with grey clouds; in the upper left corner the sky is pink-orange-white due to reflections off the invisible sun. The miniature stems from the 1st half of the 19th century, regrettably the author is unknown. The portrayed figure is Princess Maria Czartoryska Duchess of Württemberg (b. March 1768 in Warsaw, d. October 1854 in Paris), Polish aristocrat, poet, daughter to Izabela Czartoryska nee Fleming and Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski. She spent her childhood in Warsaw at the Blue Palace, and in Puławy. She received a thorough education. In 1784, she married Duke Louis of Württemberg. Having divorced him, she took up residence in Warsaw, spending winters in Vienna and summers in Puławy, Sieniawa or Karlsbad. Following the Third Partition of Poland, she started to create in Puławy a museum of national remembrances. The redecorated park in the village of Pilica became more famous than the cemetery of Powązki or the Arkadia. After the November Uprising, she remained in Galicia, moving to Paris in 1837, where she took up residence. In 1806-1816 she led a literary salon in Warsaw, hosting so-called blue Saturdays, writing the novel „Malvina, or the Heart's Intuition”, considered the first Polish novel of manners and psychology. She also wrote poetry, memoirs, short stories, descriptions of foreign travels. The miniature in Łańcut was created on the basis of a portrait created by Heinrich Fuger in 1795. Beside the email on copper, initially, oil paint and tempera were used on sheet metal and parchment. In the 17th century, the base layer used were oak battens and thick ivory panels. In the subsequent centuries, after miniatures spread, water-based paints were used (aquarelle, gouache), with thin ivory or pearl mass as well as parchment or cardboard were used. The described miniature is displayed in the Boucher Salon in the first floor of the castle of Łańcut.