Waleria Tarnowska’s Fascination with Italian Sculpture during Her Journey to Italy, 1803–1804
Katarzyna Mikocka-Rachubowa
katarzyna.mikocka@wp.plInstitute of Art, Polish Academy of Science (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-7490
Abstract
The article concerns the journey to Italy which Countess Waleria Tarnowska made in 1803–1804 and her attitude to the works of sculpture she saw there. In the diary she kept during her travels, which on the considerations presented here are based, she noted down descriptions of monuments and art collections, included references to artists she met and purchases made in their studios, as well as her own artistic impressions. The principal place in these notes is held by the oeuvre of Antonio Canova, with whom Tarnowska established a close relationship. During her stay in Rome, she acquired, for a huge sum of money, one of his most famous works: a statue of Perseus (now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), which is probably not a replica, as is commonly believed, but a prime version of the statue now at the Vatican. Tarnowska was less interested in sculpture than in painting, but she viewed, and included in her records, an impressive number of sculptures, aiming to give as complete an information on them as possible and noting the feelings that their viewing aroused in her. Her diary is an interesting example of the documentation of experiences gained during Italian sojourns by members of the European elite of the time and a rarity in the context of late 18th- and early 19th-century travel writing.
Keywords:
Waleria Tarnowska, Antonio Canova, journeys to Italy, Italian sculpture, travel writingReferences
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Authors
Katarzyna Mikocka-Rachubowakatarzyna.mikocka@wp.pl
Institute of Art, Polish Academy of Science Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7293-7490
Prof. Katarzyna Mikocka-Rachubowa PhD (habil.) is an art historian, a Professor at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Head of the Section of Ancient Art. Formerly, she was the editor in-chief of the Dictionary of Polish Artists published at the Institute; afterwards, she was Head of the Department of Fine Arts History. She is a member of the Warsaw Scientific Society, Association of Art Historians, Polish Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, International Society for Eighteenth Century Studies, as well as the Committee for Fine Arts Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences (since 2020). Her academic interests focus on the history of sculpture from the 16th to the 19th century, mainly Italian sculpture, as well as the art and artistic culture of the second half of the 18th century and the early 19th century. She has published nearly five hundred works: books, including the two-volume monographs: Canova, jego krąg i Polacy (2001); André Le Brun „pierwszy rzeźbiarz” króla Stanisława Augusta (2010); Rzeźba włoska w Polsce około 1770–1830 (2016) and recently Antonio Canova and his Polish Clientele (2021), studies and articles published in Poland and in Italy (e.g. Canova ed i committenti polacchi; La scultura romana in Polonia tra tardo Settecento e primo Ottocento; Rome and Sculpture in Poland in the Reign of King Stanislaus Augustus; Le ispirazioni di André Le Brun, „primo scultore” del re Stanislao Augusto), reviews, as well as numerous biographic articles and biographic notes of sculptors in artist dictionaries.
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