Since the mid-19th century, the gardens and parks of the royal residence in Wilanów have showcased a collection of sculptures and architectural pieces originating from one place and made with the same technology and technique. These earthenware objects were produced at Ernst March’s Earthenware Factory in Charlottenburg (Thonwaarenfabrik von Ernst March Söhne). Historical documentation suggests that the present collection is seriously incomplete, with entire objects, or their parts, being either destroyed or missing. With ethical considerations and good conservation practices in mind, and also with a view to protecting the cultural heritage in the sense of old trades and technologies, the Wilanów Palace Museum has made it its goal to reproduce these lost objects, or their parts, using the techniques and technologies they were originally made with. To this end, the Museum and the Institute of Ceramics and Building Materials in Warsaw (ICBM) have joined forces to recreate the technological process used for the production of the type of earthenware originated by Ernst Mach, and called Chaussée Staub. In 2010, having examined the application of the Wilanów Palace Museum, the Minister of Science and Higher Education granted funds for the project and upgraded the project’s status to “developmental”. The project is based on the history of the eagle sculpture sited in the Northern Park on a fluted column with a Corinthian capital.
The origins of the Wilanów collection of garden terracotta sculptures could be accurately identified based on a number of bills and first-hand accounts. The first account says in extenso:
Charlottenburg
Den 17ten April 1858
Rechnung
Fur Herrn Grafen von Potocki... in Warschau von Ernst March’s Thonwaaren – Fabrik
1 figure of Victoria with loose wings and shoulders
1 eagle
1 Corinthian pillar
2 Mauritanian vases
2 vases with garlands and birds
2 vases with little-boy-shaped hanging baskets (“Knabensenkeln”)
Although the bill is dated 17 April 1858, the book “Wilanów. Album widoków i pamiątek” (“Wilanów. An Album of Sights and Mementos”) by H. Skimborowicz and W. Gerson from 1877 contains the following entry:
In 1856 Hr. August Potocki put up a column made of a material called CHAUSSEE-STAUB. It was brought in from Berlin. There are no accounts of why August Potocki was interested specifically in this source.
It is important to mention the fact that Ernst March’s plant belonged to pioneers in the mass production of decorations. Also, the plant employed innovative marketing methods by distributing product catalogues and price lists, and allowing clients to have some influence on the form and content of the end product. However, there is a sketch made by Henryk Marconi in 1857 illustrating a vision (which has never been brought to reality) of monumental stairs leading from the top of the escarpment along the axis of the Orangery towards the lower terrace (the fluvial terrace). The centrepiece of this layout is a column with a Corinthian capital and an eagle sculpture set on it. The bill for this object, issued by March’s plant in 1858, also specifies other items, including the Victoria, which continues to tower over the Rose Garden – at the opposite end of the palace – to this day.
The entry in Sikmborowicz’s and Gerson’s album was the last written account mentioning the eagle column. Later, however, some photographs of the Wilanów gardens were taken, with a number of shots featuring the column. As a result of the damage sustained during the occupation between 1940 and 1945, what remained of the sculpture was merely a piece of rubble – a headless, wingless and legless torso of an eagle. In the years 1965-2014, this sculpture was replaced with an epoxy-resin impression based on the archival pictures of the eagle.
In 2006, before the project was launched, a search query in Germany had been conducted. As a result, some catalogues from the Thonwaarenfabrik von Ernst March Söhne were found at the Ofen - und Keramik Museum in Velten near Berlin. These catalogues contained a picture and description of an object that fitted the object from Wilanów. It is absolutely clear from the description that the original piece was created by the highly acclaimed German sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch (who also designed the Victoria).
Two identical objects were found in Germany in 2011, which had a major impact on the final result of the project. These objects belong to the private collection of Mr Torsten Schmidt, which he keeps in his Hohenhaus residence in Radebeul near Dresden. With his courtesy, Mr Schmidt made these objects available to our research teams, which helped the project gain a perfect demonstration material that facilitated an accurate reproduction of the Wilanów eagle in terms of the technology, technique and sculptural form. The intensive project efforts culminated with the ICBM’s research team’s handing over to the Wilanów Palace Museum a replica of C.D. Rauch’s eagle sculpture. In making the sculpture, the team employed a technology that was as closely similar to the original technology as possible given the current access to raw materials.
The great success of this cross-disciplinary project is due to many highly specialised teams deployed by various research institutions, universities and companies, and also to independent researchers. Future publications will provide more information about their work.
