Silva Rerum | 13.12.2010 August Potocki (1806 – 1867), the older son of Aleksander and Anna née Tyszkiewicz, the grandson of Stanisław Kostka, received from his family property, i.a. the estate of Wilanów and Międzyrzec, enhanced by the dowry of his wife, Aleksandra Potocka. Although he held the offices of state councillor and the master of the horse at the Russian court, as well as being a cavalier of the Legion of Honour, August proved be rather average. Contemporary chroniclers did not pay him much attention and thus little can be said about him. Apparently, his wife, Aleksandra (who among her closest family and friends was known as Alaska), with a more distinctive personality, played the dominating role in this marriage. Her faithful correspondent, Eliza Krasińska née Banicka, jocularly but persistently called Potocki Don Gugul, which suggests that the grandson of Stanisław Kostka, although rather placid, had a sense of humour.
August Potocki married his cousin Aleksandra in Edinburgh on 11 January 1840. On 4 February of that year ”Kurier Warszawski” announced: “The blessing was bestowed by the local Bishop, surrounded by numerous members of the Clergy. After the religious rite, the Wedded Couple departed for the estate of Lord Dunmore, where they were to stay for a few days [...]. The young couple paid visits to eminent families in the neighbourhood, and are expected in Warsaw next month”. The French press estimated that the bride‘s dowry was worth 200 000 franks. Married for 28 years the couple remained childless (NB. correspondence with Eliza Krasińska shows that Aleksandra harboured an inexplicable aversion to children), but both husband and wife with great passion continued the work of Stanisław Kostka and Aleksander Potocki, thus increasing the Wilanów collections. They purchased paintings both at home and abroad, and by the end of the nineteenth century the palace gallery totalled more than a thousand canvases and was one of the largest in Poland at the time.
Oil portraits of August are scarce (the number of photographs taken ad vivum is much larger). The Wilanów collections include a painting executed in 1829 by the Austrian painter Johann Ender (1793–1867) to commemorate a banquet given by Stanislaw Potocki’s wife in Warsaw on 13 February 1828 in honour of Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz. Some the participants dressed in historical costumes, e.g. the young August Potocki dined as Don Alonso di Medina in a reference to Niemcewicz’s novel Jan z Tęczyna. The painting was copied in a woodcut by Piotr Dyamentowski, who used a drawing by Józef Buchbinder, and was included in Willanów, a lavish album by Hipolit Skimborowicz and Wojciech Gerson, published in Warsaw in 1877.