Former castle in Puławy

A view of the Puławy Palace from the period after its reconstruction carried out from 1796 by Christian Piotr Aigner. In the years 1731-1831 the building was a temporary and then a permanent residence of the Czartoryski noble family. In the years 1731-1736, the formerly ruined palace was rebuilt at the behest of Maria Zofia née Sieniawska and her husband, August Aleksander Czartoryski. The author of the design of the new residence in the rococo style was the Saxon architect Jan Zygmunt Deybel, who extended it (including the outbuildings and galleries connecting them with the palace). From 1785, the palace became the main seat of Adam Kazimierz and Izabela Czartoryski, who created the centre of Polish cultural life here. At the time, Puławy was one of the most beautiful residences in Poland. In order to embellish it even more, the Czartoryski family contracted Aigner, an outstanding Polish classicist architect born in Puławy, who, among other things, extended the front pavilions of the palace and remodeled the interiors, giving them a classicist decor. The image of the residence from that time is depicted in a lithograph by Alfons Matuszkiewcz, made based on an aquatint by brothers Józef and Karol August Richter from 1809-1818. In 1859 the palace in Puławy had not looked like it does in the picture. It was already redesigned by Józef Górecki in the years 1840-1843. Soon after the fire, in the years 1859-1861, Julian Ankiewicz re-built it yet again.

Matuszkiewicz’s lithograph is a part of the ‘Puławy Album’, a series which is a continuation of the ‘Lubelskie Album’, published in the years 1857-1859 in the respected Warsaw Lithographic Institute of Adolf Pecq and Co. The Puławy Album, published in 1859, contains eight tables presenting the local monuments. These are: A view of Nowa Alexandrya (Puławy) from Puławy Mountain, A former Puławy castle, A view of the castle in Puławy from the sandbank, Sibyl from the sandbank, A gothic house in the garden in Nowa Alekxandrya in Puławy, Palace called Marynki in Nowa Alexandrya (Puławy), A tree on Kępa Puławska with the Mother of God, Temple of Sibyl in Puławy. Drawings of the views, with the exception of the palace from the courtyard side, were captured by Adam Lerue (1825-1863), the creator of the album. Tinted lithographs based on Lerue's drawings were made by Julian Cegliński (1827-1910) and Alfons Matuszkiewicz (around 1822-1878), Warsaw painters and graphic artists. The boards are complemented by an introduction by Hipolit Skimborowicz (1815-1880) devoted to the history and monuments of Puławy. The album was printed at the well-known publishing house of Jan Jaworski (1815-1875) in Warsaw.

Renata Bartnik