Previously unpublished letters of Henryk and Karol Marconi at the Getty Research Institute

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to discuss the correspondence between Warsaw artists Henryk and Karol Marconi, and a Roman sculptor and architect, Luca Carimini. Found at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, the previously unpublished sources allow a more detailed history of the Sobieski Chapel, which was built at the Wilanów Palace between 1852 and 1863 on the initiative of its owners, August and Aleksandra Potocki, to be traced. The identification of the elements produced by the Italian designer is helpful in identifying references to his Italian works, which allude to the masterpieces of the Quattrocento on the one hand, and, on the other, heavily draw from the repertoire of classicist decorative forms. The correspondence also allows the process by which Polish aristocracy commissioned Italian artwork for import to Polish lands to be trace.