Henryk Lubomirski as Cupid in the collection of the Castle Museum in Łańcut
Henryk Lubomirski was born in 1777 in Rivne in Volhynia. He was the son of Józef, the castellan of Kiev, a distant relative of the husband of Princess Izabela Lubomirska née Czartoryska, and Ludwika née Sosnowska. When Henryk was about six years old, he went to be raised by Princess Izabela Lubomirska née Czartoryska, the owner of the Castle in Łańcut.
From Volhynia to Łańcut
In the collection of the Library of the Castle Museum in Łańcut there is a manuscript of Henryk's granddaughter, Maria Tyszkiewiczowa née Lubomirska, and in it a family message: "So it happened that when she was in Rivne with Prince Józef Lubomirski [...], Princess Ludwika came out during the ball to the parlour and sitting on the couch, she fed her lovely little son and put him on that couch afterward to sleep alone while she returned to the ballroom to dance. Then, having forgotten about him, she went to sleep. The next morning, the Princess Izabela, was leaving Rivne and, seeing the wonderful child alone on the couch, she could not help herself but grabbed the child, laid it in a fur-lined basket and went with him to Łańcut. During the journey, she sent a message to his parents telling them not to worry and asking them to agreed to let her take their son, whom she would look after like a mother. The parents agreed and Prince Henryk grew up with his foster mother and was her joy”.
Henryk's childhood
Thanks to the care of Princess Izabela Lubomirska née Czartoryska, Henryk received a good education. He also took harp lessons and learned to dance. He lived in residences in Łańcut and Vienna. He also accompanied his foster mother on her travels. In Rome, at the request of the Princess, Henryk was portrayed by the painter Angelika Kauffmann. The sculptor Antonio Canova (1757–1822) made a marble statue of the adoptive son of Princess Izabela in the years 1786–1788. This most prominent representative of Italian neoclassicism presented the boy as Cupid, the mythological god of love.
Remarkable sculpture
The statue shows a naked young man with a bow in his hand, leaning against a tree trunk to which a quiver of arrows is tied. The model's head – the copy of the original – was placed on the body of a boy a few years older than Henryk, showing him not as a child, but as a teenager.
The statue of Henryk Lubomirski as Cupid can be seen on the first floor of the Łańcut Castle, in the Column Hall. The interior was designed by Szymon Bogumił Zug and Jan Chrystian Kamsetzer to resemble an ancient temple. The sculpture located on the axis of the room is surrounded by Ionic columns, which increase similarity to an ancient temple. Behind the sculpture on the walls, on the right and left, there is a Chinese fabric from the turn of the 17th and18th centuries with a pattern telling the story of an unusual bird Feng (Phoenix), to which other birds pay tribute.
The bond between Henryk Lubomirski and his foster mother was very durable.
The Princess was very generous to Henryk: In 1799 she bought him the city of Przeworsk and also bequeathed to him the palace in Vienna at Mölker Bastei and part of the collection in Łańcut.
JGCh
The project “www.muzeach” is co-financed from European Funds and from the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National of the Republic of Poland. The project is implemented under the Operational Programme Digital Poland for the years 2014-2020, Priority Axis 2 “E-government and open government,” Action 2.3 “Digital availability and usefulness of public sector information,” Sub-action 2.3.2 “Digital availability of culture resources.”
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