DOI issue:
Nr. 4
DOI article:Michałowski, Maciej Piotr: The Raczyński of Rogalin
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18940#0139
organize the manufacture of silk without success. The years 1869—74, with some intervals,.
he spent in Chile, having been encouraged by a friend of his to try to get some abandoned gold
mines in the Andes working again. In 1870, on hearing of the defeat at Sedan, he returned to
France and fought as a common soldicr (under the assumed name Roger) in the army of the
Loire against Prussians.
In 1874 Edward Aleksander Raczyński returned to Poland to save the Rogalin estate which
was threatend with bankrupcy. He spent most of his time in Warsaw and Cracow where he enjo-
yed a high degree of social success due to his colourful past. Three years later he married Maria
Beatrix Krasińska, the youngest daughter of the poet Zygmunt, but the marriage was a failure.
It was only in 1886 that there came a turning point in his life, when he married his second wife
(Maria Krasińska had died in 1884), Róża nee Potocka, the widów of Władysław Krasiński. Róża
was an excellent organizer, and with her help and the financial support of the Branickis, Rogalin
slowly began to recover from its years of neglect. The pałace was thoroughly rcstored in the
years 18 9 2—95.30 Gradually coming to grips with his financial problems, Edward Aleksander
was able to oceupy himself with art, with collecting and patronage, continuing in this way the
family tradition.
However, we should not forget that the pałace in Rogalin was already fuli of numerous works
of art which had been collected by previous generations of Raczyńskis, even before Edward
Aleksander began his life's work of creating the gallery which was to make hirn famous as a.
collector and connoisseur of both Polish and European art. The furnishings of the Rogalin resi-
dence, which had been there sińce the youth of the futurę collector, survived almost intact
until 1939. They were slightly diminished after his death in 1926 (distributed among inheri-
tors), but they were enriched in his lifetime because of new purchases and endowments; today,
they survive in a vestigial form. Attempts to reconstruct the furnishings of the pałace to what
they were before the outbreak of the second world war, especially the collections of paintings,
which are the most interesting for us, have in practice proved extremely difficult to implement.
There was no inventory or even list of the pre-war Raczyński collections (with the exception_
of the Picture Gallery), and information about them in the few iconographic and written sources
is mainly indirect or downright haphazard.
In contradistinction to the Gallery collections, which were evacuated in May 1939 to Warsaw,
the collection of paintings in the palące was for the most part left in Rogalin. Only the most
valuable pictures (which it seems were mainly family portraits) were brought to Poznań and
deposited in the fiat of Rohoziński, the father-in-law of Roger Adam Raczyński, the owner
at the time, who was Polish ambassador in Bucharest. In September 1939 the place was taken
over by the Germans for a Hitlerjugend-Fiihrerschule, and its furnishings were bit by bit rob-
bed or destroyed. Józef Raczyński of Obrzycko, a representative of the Germanizcd Courland
line of Raczyńskis, and the curator of the Raczyński Library at the time, managed to regain
some of the family portraits from Rogalin, where they served as shooting targets for the Hitler
youth.31 The rest of the paintings in the palące were confiscated by the German authorities
(Kulturami der Gauhaupłstadt Posen) at the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, and most
of them vanished, especially the most valuable ones.
30. The work was overseen by the Cracow architect Zygmunt Hendel, see M. Pawlaczyk,, ,Ze studiów nad ikonografia zespołu*
pałacowego w RogaIinic",part. II,,,Pomiary inwentaryzacyjne, szkice i projekty tzw. Teki Z. Hendla' \ Studia Muzealne,
XIV, Poznań, 1984, pp. 181—213.
31. These were mainly portraits from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centurics. Józef Raczyński also saved some of the-
portraits in the Rohoziński fiat in Poznań; this information is taken from notes made by Józef Raczyński. Que[ques notes
sur la Bibliothiaue Raczyński a Poznań et Rogalin de 1939 a 1944, ras., on 23 May 1967 for Edward Raczyński in London:
copy in the author's possession. These portraits (18 of them) survived the war in Obrzycko and Gaj, and are at presenł
in the National Museum in Poznań.
120
he spent in Chile, having been encouraged by a friend of his to try to get some abandoned gold
mines in the Andes working again. In 1870, on hearing of the defeat at Sedan, he returned to
France and fought as a common soldicr (under the assumed name Roger) in the army of the
Loire against Prussians.
In 1874 Edward Aleksander Raczyński returned to Poland to save the Rogalin estate which
was threatend with bankrupcy. He spent most of his time in Warsaw and Cracow where he enjo-
yed a high degree of social success due to his colourful past. Three years later he married Maria
Beatrix Krasińska, the youngest daughter of the poet Zygmunt, but the marriage was a failure.
It was only in 1886 that there came a turning point in his life, when he married his second wife
(Maria Krasińska had died in 1884), Róża nee Potocka, the widów of Władysław Krasiński. Róża
was an excellent organizer, and with her help and the financial support of the Branickis, Rogalin
slowly began to recover from its years of neglect. The pałace was thoroughly rcstored in the
years 18 9 2—95.30 Gradually coming to grips with his financial problems, Edward Aleksander
was able to oceupy himself with art, with collecting and patronage, continuing in this way the
family tradition.
However, we should not forget that the pałace in Rogalin was already fuli of numerous works
of art which had been collected by previous generations of Raczyńskis, even before Edward
Aleksander began his life's work of creating the gallery which was to make hirn famous as a.
collector and connoisseur of both Polish and European art. The furnishings of the Rogalin resi-
dence, which had been there sińce the youth of the futurę collector, survived almost intact
until 1939. They were slightly diminished after his death in 1926 (distributed among inheri-
tors), but they were enriched in his lifetime because of new purchases and endowments; today,
they survive in a vestigial form. Attempts to reconstruct the furnishings of the pałace to what
they were before the outbreak of the second world war, especially the collections of paintings,
which are the most interesting for us, have in practice proved extremely difficult to implement.
There was no inventory or even list of the pre-war Raczyński collections (with the exception_
of the Picture Gallery), and information about them in the few iconographic and written sources
is mainly indirect or downright haphazard.
In contradistinction to the Gallery collections, which were evacuated in May 1939 to Warsaw,
the collection of paintings in the palące was for the most part left in Rogalin. Only the most
valuable pictures (which it seems were mainly family portraits) were brought to Poznań and
deposited in the fiat of Rohoziński, the father-in-law of Roger Adam Raczyński, the owner
at the time, who was Polish ambassador in Bucharest. In September 1939 the place was taken
over by the Germans for a Hitlerjugend-Fiihrerschule, and its furnishings were bit by bit rob-
bed or destroyed. Józef Raczyński of Obrzycko, a representative of the Germanizcd Courland
line of Raczyńskis, and the curator of the Raczyński Library at the time, managed to regain
some of the family portraits from Rogalin, where they served as shooting targets for the Hitler
youth.31 The rest of the paintings in the palące were confiscated by the German authorities
(Kulturami der Gauhaupłstadt Posen) at the end of 1939 and the beginning of 1940, and most
of them vanished, especially the most valuable ones.
30. The work was overseen by the Cracow architect Zygmunt Hendel, see M. Pawlaczyk,, ,Ze studiów nad ikonografia zespołu*
pałacowego w RogaIinic",part. II,,,Pomiary inwentaryzacyjne, szkice i projekty tzw. Teki Z. Hendla' \ Studia Muzealne,
XIV, Poznań, 1984, pp. 181—213.
31. These were mainly portraits from the eighteenth and early nineteenth centurics. Józef Raczyński also saved some of the-
portraits in the Rohoziński fiat in Poznań; this information is taken from notes made by Józef Raczyński. Que[ques notes
sur la Bibliothiaue Raczyński a Poznań et Rogalin de 1939 a 1944, ras., on 23 May 1967 for Edward Raczyński in London:
copy in the author's possession. These portraits (18 of them) survived the war in Obrzycko and Gaj, and are at presenł
in the National Museum in Poznań.
120