Exterior structure The structure was designed by Augustyn Wincenty Locci. The architecture of the palace is a unique example of different building traditions - reminiscent of Polish aristocratic mansions with side towers, the Italian suburban villa and French palaces
entre cour et jardin with two oblong wings on each side of the ''
cour d'honneur''. During the first stage of construction, between 1677 and 1680, the building was a typical Polish
manor house with four
alcove towers attached to the one-storeyed square building. Between 1681 and 1688, the building was enhanced and two gallery wings ending with towers were added. This new appearance was probably inspired by
Palladio's
Villa Montagnana. The latter was responsible for the ideological and artistic programme, where motives and decoration elements played an essential role in glorifying the monarch, his wife and the Republic -
busts of king and queen among the effigies of ancient characters, gods and goddesses,
Roman emperors and
empresses (such as the
Dioscuri,
Zeus-Amun,
Sibyl,
Romulus,
Rhea Silvia,
Alexander the Great,
Cleopatra,
Dido and
Vespasian among others),
Eagle and
Pogonia,
personifications of the
Commonwealth regions (
Masovia and
Greater Poland,
Samogitia,
Red Ruthenia and
Royal Prussia). They were issued by sculptors
Andreas Schlüter (many
reliefs and other secondary aspects of the façade), Stefan Szwaner and a
stucco decorator named Antoni of
Wilanów. Some of the sculptures were made in the
Low Countries by
Lodewijk Willemsens and
Artus Quellinus the Elder' workshop, shipped to
Gdańsk and then transported to Warsaw. An ornate
sundial on the south wall with
Chronos, together with the opposite composition with
Uranus on the north wall, were intended to underline the King's patronage of science and orderliness in the Commonwealth during his reign. They were executed by Antoni of Wilanów, according to the design by
Johannes Hevelius (astronomical aspect),
Adam Adamandy Kochański (mathematical aspect) and Augustyn Locci (artistic aspect). The side wings embracing a courtyard, initiated by the King, were built long after his death by
Elżbieta Sieniawska. They were constructed in the fourth stage of the enlargement between 1720 and 1729. Despite that she transformed the palace into a French style
palais enchanté according to a design by Giovanni Spazzio, with two new wings harmonious with the 17th century
corps de logis. She employed the most renowned architects and artists for this undertaking, such as previously mentioned Spazzio,
Jan Zygmunt Deybel,
Józef Fontana,
Jan Jerzy Plersch and Giovanni Rossi. While the original royal palace was decorated with reliefs depicting the deeds of John III, the new wings were adorned with battlefield achievements of Sieniawska's husband and father-in-law -
Adam Mikołaj and
Mikołaj Hieronim Sieniawski, Sobieski's comrades.
Interior space . The most prominent Polish and foreign artists participated in the decoration of the palace interiors. It was entrusted to painters
Martino Altomonte, Jan Rayzner of
Lviv,
Michelangelo Palloni, sculptor Stefan Szwaner and stucco decorators Szymon Józef Bellotti, Antoni of Wilanów and Abraham Paris. They were supervised by the official
court painters Claude Callot and later by
Jerzy Siemiginowski-Eleuter. The latter, one of the greatest Polish painters of that time, had a significant influence on the palace's subsequent internal aspects (
plafonds in the
state rooms,
frescoes). The 17th-century palace inventories included the works of the greatest contemporary and ancient masters, like
Rembrandt (
Portuguese rabbi,
The Girl in a Picture Frame,
The Adoration of the Magi,
Abraham and Hagar,
Portrait of an old man in the so-called
Dutch Room of the palace),
Pieter van Laer, called
Bamboccio (
Travellers),
Anthony van Dyck (
Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane),
Ferdinand van Kessel (battle scenes,
allegorical paintings and
still lifes),
Raphael,
Caracci brothers,
Guido Reni and
Bernardo Strozzi. The chambers were filled with precious furnishings, like silver
folding screen, silver pyramid with 11 baskets, a three-storeyed silver fountain or a silk
baldachin presented by the
Shah of Persia. or looted by the Germans during World War II (e.g. John III's
tortoise-shell cabinet, never retrieved). Among the artists appointed for decoration of the palace's interiors in the 18th century were Giuseppe Rossi, an Italian
fresco painter, who adorned the chambers with ''
trompe-l'œil paintings and stucco decorators Francesco Fumo and Pietro Innocente Comparetti. Following the example of Queen Marie Casimire Sobieska, who ordered a painting of herself as a goddess on the palace plafonds, Elżbieta Sieniawska embellished the Lower Vestibule with a fresco of Flora. On her initiative, the walls in the royal chambers were covered with Genoan velvet. The walls of the second floor, that is the Great Dining Room
, were covered with frescoes depicting Apollo, Minerva and Hercules as an allegory of Virtus Heroica
(Heroic Valor), Hebe symbolizing Venustas'' (Beauty) completed with
panoplies. Sieniawska's daughter,
Maria Zofia Czartoryska, furnished the palace with new
fireplaces made of white-cherry
marble and crowned with mirrors in rich
rococo frames. In the contract with King Augustus II, Maria Zofia obliged him to preserve the palace unchanged. Therefore, his actions were limited to finishing the new dining room, called the
White Room in the southern wing and to the decoration of some unfinished interiors. The plafonds and other paintings were executed by Julien Poison, Johann Samuel Mock and Lorenzo Rossi, while the decorative
lacquer panneaux in the
Chinese Room were made by Martin Schnell.
Garden An integral part of the palace, almost since its beginning, is the garden. Initially, it had the character of a baroque
Italian garden in a semicircular form surrounding the palace on the east. In its composition this geometric garden fitted in well with the ancient patterns and the palace arrangement. It consisted of an upper garden located on a terrace with two
arbours in the form of
lanterns in each corner, and lower garden. During the third stage of the reconstruction of the palace the geometric garden
parterres were replaced with
embroidered parterres
à la française inspired by
André Le Nôtre's works. At that time the garden was embellished with
gilded lead sculptures by Gaspar Richter of Gdańsk and vases carved in cherry marble from
Chęciny. In the beginning of the 18th century the garden was enlarged, the late baroque parterre ornamentation was replaced with
Régence motives completed with Sieniawska's coat of arms
Szreniawa in the northern parts and her monogram in the southern part. ==Panorama==