Kolekcja | 25.09.2015 Due to the opinion of the Judges of the Garden Exhibition [...] the gardens of Willanów and Natolin are awarded a silver medal for the best selection of undefined species of pears, apples and plums. As evidence, they receive the following certificate presented in Warsaw on 16 September 1895. The diploma was issued by Towarzystwo Ogrodnicze Warszawskie (Warsaw Garden Society), an institution established in 1884 and the organiser of national conventions determining the selection of fruit species for the Kingdom of Poland. The print in question is an interesting reflection of its times: the sheet was folded into two even parts, with one side featuring a text in Russian and the other – in Polish.
The composition of the document is also noteworthy. The diploma features the then popular lithographic flat print. An ornamental frame is composed of small scenes with figures busily working in a garden. The Wilanów collection has 29 such documents preserved, proving that the owners of the landed estate and in particular the wife of August Potocki, to whom the majority of the diplomas is addressed, attached great importance to managing the whole property and not only the palace interiors.
Marta Gołąbek