Henryk Lubomirski as Amor

Henryk Lubomirski as Cupid Henryk Lubomirski (1777–1850) was the son of Józef, Castellan of Kiev, and Ludwika née Sosnowska. From about 1783 he was brought up by the Princess Izabela Lubomirska née Czartoryska, widow of Stanisław Lubomirski related to Henryk’s father, owner of the castle in Łańcut. The Princess had four daughters, but she had no affection for them. Having no son, enchanted by Henry’s extraordinary beauty, she wanted to bring him up and make him her heir. As a child he accompanied the Princess on her journeys across Europe, including to Italy in 1785. In Rome, on the order of Princess Izabela Lubomirska, he was portrayed by the painter Angelika Kauffman and by Antonio Canova (1757–1822), the most outstanding Italian sculptor of the Neoclassical period. The marble statue of Henryk Lubomirski made by Canova between 1786 and 1788 depicts him as Cupid, the god of love. A naked boy standing in contrapposto holds a bow, leaning against a tree trunk. A quiver with arrows is tied to the trunk with a ribbon. Henryk’s head, turning to the left, was modelled from nature and has a portrait character. The face is oval, with expressive features, large eyes, a narrow nose and full, parted lips. Henryk’s hair draws attention: heavily curled, swirling thick locks pile up above the forehead, while the looser ones fall to the neck. The figure of Henryk itself is idealised in a Classicist spirit, showing him not as a child but as a young man with a beautiful body. The statue is set on a pedestal in the form of a cylindrical Antique altar, decorated with a symmetrical composition depicting garlands of laurel branches and flowers, supported by eagles in their beaks with outspread wings. A small butterfly is pictured above both garlands. The statue of Henryk Lubomirski as Cupid was placed in the Łańcut castle in the Column Room designed by the outstanding architect Szymon Bogumił Zug, situated on the first floor – piano nobile, in the representative part of the castle. This room, with its Classicist decoration, was specially furnished for the statue of Cupid set on a pedestal in the shape of an ancient altar. The statue stood on the axis of the room, in its part separated by a colonnade of four pairs of stuccoed Ionic columns, reminiscent of an Ancient temple. The background of the sculpture was a fireplace with a mirror and an 18th century Chinese fabric stretched on its sides, illustrating an Oriental story about the miraculous bird Feng to which all other birds pay homage. Barbara Trojnar