Paris Salon (1781) ) was exhibited alongside
Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki at the Paris Salon in 1781 In his 1930 biographical study of the artist, art historian Richard Cantinelli noted that David began working on the
Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki in Rome and departed for Paris on July 17, 1780. In Paris, he finished the painting and displayed it at the 1781
Salon. The exhibition was David's Salon debut and Potocki's portrait was shown alongside
Belisarius Begging for Alms,
Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin for the Plague-Stricken,
The Funeral Games of Patroclus, and a composition titled
A Woman Suckling Her Child, all of which were praised by the French
Enlightenment philosopher and prominent writer
Denis Diderot. When discussing Potocki's portrait, Diderot singled out David's light
color palette, which stood in contrast to
history paintings completed by the artist during the same period. David's debut at the 1781 Salon proved to be an important artistic milestone and helped to establish him as "the most promising painter of the rising generation". Following its display in Paris, the portrait was sent to Warsaw, although the precise timeline of its movements remains uncertain.
Later years (1781–1939) The ownership of Wilanów was transferred to Potocki in 1799, who would amass a significant collection of European and East Asian art. David's portrait of Potocki was placed on the eastern wall of the Great Hall (now known as the
White Hall) of the palace. in 1805, the collection was officially opened to the public, becoming one of the first public
art museums in Poland. In 1831, amid concerns of potential Russian pillaging due to the
November Uprising—an armed
insurrection that had erupted on 29 November 1830 against the occupying
Russian Empire—the portrait of Potocki was relocated to Warsaw for safekeeping, where it remained until 1834. In 1932, the portrait, along with several other works by David, was shown at the
Exhibition of French Art 1200–1900, an extensive survey show of French art across seven centuries, organized at the
Royal Academy of Arts in London. In 1937, it was exhibited at
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne in Paris.
World War II and its aftermath In 1944, during World War II,
Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki was
looted by the Nazi forces. According to surviving records, the painting was stolen by a group led by the
Wehrmacht General
Eberhard Kinzel in December 1944, who first transported it to
Świdnica and then to Germany. During Jacques-Louis David's bi-centenary exhibition in Paris in 1948, art historian
Douglas Cooper described the portrait of Potocki as one of the "important works" missing from the show. In 1952,
Soviet authorities informed the Polish government (by then the USSR-aligned
Polish People's Republic), that they had retrieved numerous works from the Wilanów collection as part of their wider post-war restitution campaign that spanned across Germany. Subsequently, the portrait was placed in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw. In 1990, after the
fall of communism in Poland, the work was transferred back to , then part of the National Museum in Warsaw, and placed on public display. In 1995, the palace became an independent national museum and in 2013, it was renamed the
Museum of King John III's Palace at Wilanów. In 2016, after undergoing extensive conservation, the painting was moved from the North Hall to the White Hall, its original location during the early 1800s where David's painting remains on view as of .
Print reproductions and copies The painting has been often reproduced in
print, most famously in the 1880 publication by Jacques-Louis-Jules David, which resulted in renewed interest in David's portrait of Potocki at the end of the 19th century. Moreover, several
copies of the painting are said to have been completed over time, including those painted by David himself. Some scholars proposed that the painting originally commissioned by Ferdinand IV could be distinct from another work intended for Potocki, as suggested by the existence of a
receipt the artist provided to Potocki on 30 June 1780, and follow-up
correspondence between the two dated 10 July 1780. In an 1877 ledger from Palace,
Equestrian Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki is described as "a study by David" made in 1781 which was bought later in Paris by
Elżbieta Izabela Lubomirska for her daughter Aleksandra Potocka, prompting some researchers to speculate that the portrait currently in the collection might itself be David's copy of the original work. The ledger also makes no mention of the 1781 Paris Salon, where the original painting is believed to have been first exhibited. Existing records further point to versions of the work made by other artists, including a 1791 copy by the Polish artist
Franciszek Smuglewicz, which has since been lost, as well as one made in or around 1905 by the painter Wacław Pawliszak. Assertions about the existence of purported additional copies of the portrait have also emerged in the 21st century, though these claims have not yet been verified by researchers. == Gallery ==