Lorentz, Stanisław; Rottermund, Andrzej: Neoclassicism in Poland (Warsaw, 1986)

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Warsaw, draft design of a triumphal arch at the Zamkowy (Castle) Square, J. Kubicki, 1781

decorated. There had been an earlier design for the Knights’ Hall in the drawings of Fontana
and Louis - thus the King had conceived of such a room very early in his reign. In 1781,
Merlini began to design the Knights’ Hall, and the finał draft approved for building was madę
in 1784. In 1786, the Hall, complete in terms of subject matter, was ready in its harmonious
composition of architectural, sculptural and painting elements. The King intended this Hall
to inspire a patriotic spirit, showing the great events and the worthy men in the history of
Poland. The contents of the paintings were inspired by Stanislas Augustus himself, who
personally took part in discussions concerning the implementation of the work, in coopera-
tion with Adam Naruszewicz. It was a specific crowning of the ideological programme of the
renewal of the Commonwealth in terms of enlightened monarchy and national consciousness.
The walls of the Knights’ Hall were covered by six historical works by Bacciarelli, on the
fronton were placed in rich stucco decoration ten oval portraits of great men, also painted by
Bacciarelli. This gallery of outstanding chiefs, knights, statesmen and scholars was com-
plemented with twenty two bronze busts, sculpted by Le Brun and Monaldi. On the axis of
the Hall stood great statues of white marble: “Famę” by Le Brun and “Chronos” by Monaldi.
In 1783-1786 Merlini furnished the Throne Room, i.e. the New Reception Chamber. The
walls were lined with red damask, framed with richly sculpted gilded battens. Plinths,
frontons and the facet of the ceiling painting were decked with gilded white-background
arabesąue ornamentation. In 1784, the walls of the octohedral Conference Closet were
covered by Jan Bogumił Plersch with golden-background arabesąue work, creating a uniform
whole with the portraits of the seven European monarchs who ruled at the same time as King
Stanislas Augustus.
The process of shaping the complex of the reception suitę at the Castle broke in 1786. The
circumstances no longer permitted a new shaping of the rooms beyond the Assembly Hall
(Ballroom): the large Dining Chamber, called the Council Chamber, and the so-called Saxon
Chapel in the northern projection of the Castle wing on the side of the Vistula. Both of those
rooms, which were part of the seąuence of reception halls, would have closed the Grand Suitę
and have been counterparts of the Knights’ Hall and the Throne Room on the other side of the
Assembly Hall, the latter set on the axis. Nevertheless, the work, from the earliest interiors by
Fontana in the sixties, through the apartments from 1774-1781, to the last ones after 1786,
was a great artistic achievement of high contemporary significance - evidence of the Stanislas
Augustus style and its development over the twenty years.
A basie reconstruction and expansion of the shape of an edifice and its external architecture -

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