Kolekcja | 09.09.2015 Goblets decorated with the "Leliwa" coat of arms are connected with the 18th-century owners of Wilanów. In 1720, Elżbieta z Lubomirskich purchased the Wilanów estate from crown prince Konstanty Sobieski. At that time, Poland's first magnate-owned crystal glass factory was already in operation in the district of Lubaczów, owned by her husband, Grand Crown Hetman Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski (1666-1726). In 1717, work began in the factory to launch a line of luxury glass products (including candelabra) to match the quality of the royal glass works in Bielany near Warsaw and other renowned European centres. To realize this ambition, foreign production specialists were employed in the early period. Fortunately preserved in the Wilanów collection, these excellent early products show that Sieniawski achieved his goal. The fragile output of the crystal glass works is very scantily represented in modern Polish collections. The two "carp scales" polished goblets and three faceted ones in the Wilanów collection suggests that they were originally part of two large sets of identically decorated vessels.
The "museum" history of goblets carrying Sieniawski's coat of arms begins in the times of Aleksander Potocki, when they were first identified as belonging to a separate set among other glass products exhibited in a special room on the first floor of the Palace (although the coat of arms was misinterpreted at the time as belonging to the Tarmowski family). The largest goblet was presented in 1856 as part of an Antiquities and Artworks Exhibition, and its detailed catalogue description includes its cover. This is how we know that the original cover (with an engraved decoration matching the floral wreath at the foot) no longer existed at the time of the Exhibition. Although its replacement (decorated with a matte vine branch) was likewise manufactured at the Crystal Glass Works and was the right shape and size, it was nonetheless decorated by a less accomplished engraver.
Barbara Szelegejd