Izabela Czartoryska and the designed landscape in Poland 1772

Izabela Czartoryska and the designed landscape in Poland 1772–1831

Whelan, Agnieszka

In 1775 Tadeusz Kosciuszko sent to his benefactor, Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski a carefully executed map of a rich and fertile territory (figure 1). Two rivers watered the plains and wound their way in the proximity of three estates laid out as regular gardens with parterres, bosques and a network of planted avenues. Each estate was accompanied by a cluster of village houses, each with its own garden. All the country roads, avenues and winding rivers ran towards a fantastic, star-shaped fortress called Czartorysk, set at the mouth of the estuary by the sea. The villages looked contented in the shadow of the great estates, and their names expressed their happy condition: Bel Air, Belle Vue, Nulle Crainte, Sans Faste. The two rivers nurturing this ideal country were called Porte Richesses and Sans Gene. This was a true image of plenty: an ordered countryside, ruled by a rational and benevolent mind. Society here was an ordered unity, connected together in the relationships of trusting dependency and compassionate care. The key element of the survival of this idyll was the fortress Czartorysk. Needless to say, this map was not simply a representation of Prince Czartoryski’s properties.1 Rather it was a form of visual communication on the subject of prince’s management of land, economics, natural law, individual liberty, the whole of Poland. He himself never laid out a garden or regulated a natural landscape. However, his wife, Princess Izabela, did both (figure 2). She created gardens at Powązki and at Pulawy, extended her control over a wide countryside and influenced numerous gardens in Poland. She was considered by her contemporaries an authority in gardening matters. Her botanical knowledge was widely sought and her guide to laying out gardens called Thoughts on the Manner of Planting Gardens published in 1805 was on display in many country houses (figure 3).²