Vue du Pavillon Jaune

The Yellow House (the so-called Alexandrian House), part of the Puławy palace and park complex, was erected in the Small Park, near the English steps leading to the Lower Garden, around 1801-1805 according to a design by Ch. P. Aigner (?). It was probably built as a guest flat for Tsar Alexander I in connection with his expected visits to Puławy. The monarch, who was a friend of Adam George, visited the Czartoryski residence in 1805, 1814 and 1818 and probably stayed overnight in the Palace rather than in a small park pavilion built with him in mind. The Tsar's longest visit took place in 1805, when he stayed in Puławy for three weeks, holding talks with Austria and Prussia with a view to joint action against Napoleon. However, other important guests stayed at the House. Probably originally it also served for political, cultural and literary meetings, which often took place in Puławy.

After 1840, the pavilion was rebuilt by the architect Józef Górecki. Its form resembles a one-storey manor house from the late classicist period. It is decorated with a four-column Doric portico and rustication on the walls. In the 1840s, when the Alexandria Institute for the Education of Ladies was located in the palace, the Superior of the Institute, Anastasia Zenaida Groten, resided in the House. From about 1871, it was inhabited by a pop who ministered in the Orthodox church located in the Palace, in the Knights' Hall. Then, until the early 1960s, it was used as a residential house for employees of the Agricultural Institute. Later it housed various municipal institutions. Since 2017, a department of the Czartoryski Museum in Puławy - the Workshop for the Documentation of the History of the City - has been functioning there.

The lithograph also depicts the farewell of Alexander II visiting the Puławy Institute for the Education of Ladies. The Tsar is standing in the middle group of three (wearing a red cap), being bid farewell by his superior, the teaching staff and students of the Institute. The Tsar visited the school in the summer of 1857 and may have stayed overnight in the Yellow House, also known as the Yellow Palace, the House of the Superior or the Alexander II House.

Renata Bartnik