Palace on the Island

Palace on the Island

Palace on the Water (or Palace on the Island or Palace on the Isle) built in 1689, was a summer residence of the last king of Poland – Stanislaw August.Nowadays, it is just a most spectacular building at Royal Lazienki Gardens. The history of the palace takes us to back to 17th century. Grand Marshall of the Crown, Stanislaw Herakliusz Lubomirski, an owner of the land, asked Tylman, an architect, to build a garden pavilion – a Bathhouse (Lazienki in Polish) which was also called Hippokrene (Aganippe) from the ancient fountain created by the hooves of the Pegasus and was a place of gathering of the Muses and a source of poetic inspiration. In 1764, Stanislaw August Poniatowski got interested in Ujazdów (Ujazdów is the name of the surrounding area) combined with the castle on the hill and two pavilions. Shortly before election, he bought the land for his new residence. Thanks to two architects - Dominic Merlini and Jan Christian Kamsetzer – he turned a Bathhouse into a palace making it a summer museum-residence. His collection of 17th and 18th century sculptures and paintings were presented there. The interiors and decorations of the Palace on the Isle were showing king’s reforming aims and ideas – it was supposed to be his testimony based on the plan of rescuing the Republic of Poland. By the mythological statute figures and ornaments in the Ball Chamber the king wanted to show that wisdom, beauty, chastity and a passion for art where the factors of his reign. His reforms were to bring Poland to the Golden Age of peace and wealth.
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