Projektowana rezydencja Izabeli z Poniatowskich Branickiej w Łazienkach Królewskich w Warszawie

The article concerns the never constructed villa of Izabela Branicka née Poniatowska on the grounds of King Stanisław Augustus’s Łazienki Park in Warsaw. Several drawings of this building are held in the collection of the Print Room of the Warsaw University Library. Their analyses to date have not been comprehensive and their research interpretations proved to be flawed. The actual author of the designs created between 1782 and 1783 (in three major, differing versions) was the architect Stanisław Zawadzki. The Classicist building, inspired by the Hôtel Guimard in Paris (1770-1772, by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux), was to be distinguished by its classical form and striking austerity. At the time of their creation, the designs were avant-garde to an extent unrivalled in the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, and were intended to reveal Zawadzki’s unparalleled talent in his rivalry with Domenico Merlini.