Elżbieta Sieniawska

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Elżbieta Sieniawska
Lubomirski family
Spouse(s)Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski
IssueMaria Zofia Czartoryska
FatherStanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski
MotherZofia Opalińska

Elżbieta Helena Sieniawska, née Lubomirska (Końskowola, 1669 – 21 March 1729, Oleszyce), was a Polish noblewoman, Grand Hetmaness of the Crown (hetmanowa wielka koronna),[1] and a renowned patron of the arts.

An influential woman

Rákóczi's War for [Hungarian] Independence
.

She was considered the most powerful woman in the Commonwealth and was called "the uncrowned Queen of Poland".[2]

Biography

Early life

Elżbieta was the only child of Prince Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski by his first wife Countess Zofia

Marie Casimire.[6] In 1687, she married Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski, Grand Hetman of the Crown, and despite her husband's demands she stayed in Warsaw, where she got involved in a famed romance with Jan Stanisław Jabłonowski.[7] She was reconciled with her husband, but soon after, her affair with Aleksander Benedykt Sobieski became well known.[8] Her financial independence caused conflict with her husband and she was forced to defend her property and income from his interference.[6] Eventually, the hetmaness achieved equilibrium within their marriage, and sometimes even underlined her leadership role in their intimate relations addressing Sieniawski as My dear Maiden in her letters.[9] Monsieur de Mongrillon, secretary of the French Embassy in the period 1694–1698, recalled in his memoirs: she is a true Amazon [...] She smokes like a man. It is said that the Tatar ambassador who came to Poland with peace overtures came to smoke by her bed and she smoked with him.[10]

Stateswoman

Elżbieta Sieniawska by Ádám Mányoki

The hetmaness was "a lady of great wisdom, reason and shrewdness" and she was deployed by her husband on diplomatic missions, duties and obligations that he could not cope with.

Jakub and Konstanty Sobieskis were kidnapped and imprisoned in Saxony, Aleksander resigned from the rivalry for the crown, afraid of revenge from his former lover (at that time Wettin partisan).[17]

Elżbieta Sieniawska, portrayed in Sarmatian pose and in male delia cloak, by Louis de Silvestre

In 1706, after Augustus II's abdication, she engaged in the negotiations to reach an agreement between the tsar

Sejm began to enforce the Sieniawska's protegee.[19] When those plans failed, she endeavoured to legalise Leszczyński's election and to remove all foreign troops from the country.[19] In her politics, she also aimed to reduce the Russian influences in the Commonwealth.[20] She was an unscrupulous politician participating in political affairs on a large scale, establishing secret contacts with different camps and conducting various personal intrigues[6] – Charles XII of Sweden referred to her as "that most accursed woman".[21]

Since 1709, she fostered Konstanty's candidature to the throne (he visited her together with Stanisław Leszczyńksi in Lviv in Spring 1709), and though she was against the Wettin restoration, she could accommodate to Augustus II being already in possession of the Polish crown.[14] To the baptism of her only daughter in 1711 in Jarosław she invited the powerful of the age. Among the godparents were Tsar Peter I, King Augustus II and prince Rákóczi, accompanied by about 15000 soldiers.[22] The tsar Peter I was attracted by her unusual intelligence and it is believed that she became his mistress.[23][24] During his stay in Jaworów in May 1711, according to the French ambassador Sieur Baluze, they talked endlessly and built a boat together.[25]

Later life

Maria Zofia Czartoryska, heiress of Sieniawska's fortune

In the following years, the hetmaness retired from politics, and concentrated on administration of her vast estates and their economic development. In one of her letters of 17 July 1726 Sieniawska reprimanded an accountant in the

canon Andrzej Stanisław Tucci and a Jewish woman Feyga Leybowiczowa, to whom she entrusted the management of mills and inns in Końskowola.[27] She also supported Jewish settlement on her lands (on 2 May 1718 she issued a privilege for the Jews to settle in Staszów and build a synagogue).[28]

Sieniawski family, 1724–1726

She also focused on constructional foundations. In 1720, she established the new

Löwenwolde's Treaty),[31] Jan Klemens Branicki, Franciszek Salezy Potocki, Jan Tarło and August Aleksander Czartoryski, who eventually won the competition full of duels and speech encounters due to support of Augustus II, as the latter was afraid of increase of power of his opponents.[32]

Patronage

Elżbieta Sieniawska as Flora by Giuseppe Rossi

Through her extensive contacts from

Efraim Szreger and František Mayer of Moravia, painters Jan Jerzy Plersch and Giuseppe Rossi, eminent sculptors of Bohemian Baroque Jan Elijáš and Hynek Hoffmanns,[33] stucco decorators Francesco Fumo and Pietro Innocente Comparetti, gardener Georg Zeidler of Saxony.[34] She also employed Dresden court artists such as Johann Sigmund Deybel, Louis de Silvestre and sculptor Jean-Joseph Vinache[35] and was a patron of young talented artists, like Julius Perty son of her architect Jacob, who was trained in Charles de Prevot's atelier in Sandomierz between 1726 and 1730.[36] Among her protegees was also a poet Elżbieta Drużbacka known as the Sarmatian Muse.[37]

The Wilanów Palace wings were constructed by Sieniawska between 1720 and 1729.

In 1713, the king Augustus II purchased the Morsztyn Palace and neighbouring allotments and started the construction of a new palace – so called Saxon Palace. Modelled after Versailles, it was the largest building in Warsaw, apart from the Sobieski's Marywil. It was a time of late baroque and rococo, when theatrum mundi, with its theatrical decorations played an essential role, not only in founder's glorification but also in politics to confirm the status. That is why the facade of the new palace was considered as rather poor[38] (all the major funds were intended to embellished the prince-elector's capital in Dresden, Germany). Sieniawska, who competed with the king in architectural foundations,[39] choose an old Royal edifice – the Visitationist Church established by Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga, as her major propaganda investment in the capital.[40] Probably the most important was its location at the Cracow Suburb Street, in front of the main entrance to the new royal residence, so everyone who visited the king must pass before the ornate Sieniawska's magnum opus.[39][40] She appointed her court architect Karol Bay to design a new rococo facade profusely embellished with columns and sculptures.[39]

The conservation and enlargement of the former residence of Victorious King, John III Sobieski, is considered as her most significant achievement in the field of architecture. She embellished the palace facades and garden

mythological plafonds. By taking the example of Queen Marie Casimire, that ordered to paint her as a goddess in palace plafonds, the hetmaness decorated the Lower Vestibule with a fresco depicting her as a Roman goddess of fertilityFlora (she was almost 60 at that time).[41]

In 1729, she erected the mausoleum in Berezhany to commemorate her husband, the last male line descendant of the Sieniawski family, but she did not complete the interior.[35] Elżbieta Sieniawska died the same year in Oleszyce.[14]

Ancestors

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Mencel 1974, p. 37
  2. ^ Muszyńska-Hoffmannowa 1976, p. 326
  3. ^ Fijałkowski 1983, p. 113
  4. ^ Popiołek 1996, p. 15
  5. ^ Fijałkowski 1983, p. 111
  6. ^ a b c Bogucka 2004, p. 167
  7. ^ Muszyńska-Hoffmannowa 1976, p. 94
  8. ^ Wernichowska 1988, p. 93
  9. ^ Popiołek 1996, p. 30
  10. ^ Kuchowicz 1989, p. 7
  11. ^ a b Rostworowski 1986, p. 80
  12. ^ a b c Gajewski 2004, p. 7
  13. ^ Karpowicz 1986, p. 169
  14. ^ Felczak 1979, p. 36,90
  15. ^ Felczak 1979, p. 38
  16. ^ Poraziński 2000, pp. 481–496
  17. ^ a b Kamiński 1969, p. 112
  18. ^ a b c d e f g Kopyś 2004, pp. 46–48
  19. ^ Kopyś 2004, p. 52
  20. ^ Rosman 1990, p. 26
  21. ^ Sieradzki 2006, p. 102
  22. ^ Waliczewski 2009, p. 254
  23. ^ Moskalenko 1996, p. 202
  24. ^ Waliczewski 2009, p. 110
  25. ^ Bąkowski-Kois 2005, p. 20
  26. ^ Freeze 2005, p. 54
  27. ^ Zarębski 1992, p. 43
  28. ^ a b Fijałkowski 1983, p. 115
  29. ^ Fijałkowski 1983, p. 19,111
  30. ^ Sieradzki 2006, p. 106
  31. ^ Polski Słownik Biograficzny. "Czartoryska z Sieniawskich Maria Zofia". www.wilanow-palac.art.pl. Retrieved 20 July 2013. Swatano jej księcia Charolais, infanta portugalskiego, a w Rzeczypospolitej stanęli do konkurencji o jej rękę Jan Klemens Branicki, Franciszek Salezy Potocki, znów Tarło, oraz August Czartoryski. Rywalizacja była zacięta, strzelano się, ośmieszano rywali. Już po śmierci władczej matki (zm. 1729) młoda wdowa zdecydował się poślubić Augusta Czartoryskiego. Ten konkurent miał poparcie króla Augusta II, który obawiał się połączenia wielkiej fortuny Sieniawskich z kimś potężnym, a nastawionym wobec Sasów opozycyjnie.
  32. ^ Bohdziewicz 1964, p. 311
  33. ^ Fijałkowski 1983, pp. 111–115
  34. ^ a b State Institute of Art 2006, p. 190
  35. ^ Kieniewicz 1984, p. 539
  36. ^ Carroll 1907, p. 400
  37. ^ Karpowicz 1986, p. 143
  38. ^ a b c Kieniewicz 1984, p. 481
  39. ^ a b Chrościcki 1973, p. 38
  40. ^ "Elżbieta Sieniawska". www.wilanow-palac.pl. Retrieved 20 July 2013. Fresco with Flora displaying the facial features of Elżbieta Sieniawska, painter: Giuseppe Rossi, 1720s.[permanent dead link]

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External links