Vue du Kiosque et Góra au de la Vistule

The print shows a fragment of the garden belonging to the palace and park complex in Puławy. The author of the watercolour, which served as the basis for the litograph, was Barbara Czernof née Groten. In the 1850s, she created many works depicting the former Czartoryski palace and views of surrounding towns. Czernof was a drawing teacher at the Alexandrian Institute for the Education of Ladies, which functioned in the Czartoryski estate confiscated by the Russians after 1831. Twenty-four of the painter's works were collected in the lithographic publication by Armand Théophile Cassagne: Album des vues de l'Institut Alexandra du jardin et des environs de Novo Alexandra (Pulawy) dessiné d'après nature par Madame Czernof, published in Paris in 1858. The dedication on the title page shows that the album was made for Tsar Alexander II, who was visiting New Alexandria. One of the buildings located in the vicinity of the palace was named the Alexandria House to commemorate these visits.

The print depicts a landscape whose main element is a section of the park, a meadow planted with trees of various shapes, turning into a gentle Vistula riverbank. A broad view of a wide stretch of water and the opposite bank opens up in the clearances of tall trees. In the distance there are gentle hills with a low horizon line, with a huge expanse of sky covered with light clouds. The grassland is crossed by ribbons of paths. Here and there figures in elegant attire stroll by. In the foreground two ladies in refined dresses are chatting with a man they have met, perhaps the local gardener. The group is standing under a huge oak tree, which is an important part of the composition. Its huge silhouette obscures almost half of the picture. The appearance of the tree suggests that it is very old and has survived many storms. It remembers the times of splendour of New Athens, an outstanding cultural centre, which at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries was created in Puławy by the Czartoryski family - Adam Kazimierz and Izabela née Fleming. The shape of the residence with its magnificent English-style park, original buildings: the Sybil Temple, the Gothic House - treasuries of national memorabilia and masterpieces of art - was a great achievement of the enlightened and patriotic aristocracy of the last years of the free Polish state.