Seminar “Plant Collecting in Poland up to 1939”
We invite you to the Myślewicki Palace in the Royal Łazienki Park in Warsaw to take part in a seminar dedicated to plant collections in the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth — royal, aristocratic, landed gentry, bourgeois, and scholarly. The seminar will bring together researchers representing various disciplines: history of science, economic history, art history, collecting studies, and botany. The Eduard Petzold Foundation will be represented by Jacek Kuśmierski.
Plant collections in the lands of the former Poland remain a field insufficiently explored. Due to turbulent history and numerous circumstances unfavourable to the cultivation of plants, many collections — such as those of the Pawlikowski family in Medyka or Stanisław Wodzicki in Niedźwiedź — were destroyed. Research into plant collecting is also hindered by the scattered nature of archival materials. However, the findings of recent studies on plant collections in Wilanów and in Anna Jabłonowska’s Siemiatycze estates are encouraging and invite renewed interest in the subject. Still insufficiently recognised are the collections of plants once kept in the gardens and orangeries of the Royal Łazienki — both in the time of King Stanisław August and during the Imperial era.
Seminar Programme
09:40–10:00 – Registration
10:00–10:15 – Opening remarks
Chair: Magdalena Lewna, MA
10:20–10:40 – “Historic Orangeries and Greenhouses in Poland: Typology and State of Preservation” – Jacek Kuśmierski, MSc Eng. Landscape Architect, Eduard Petzold Foundation
10:40–11:00 – “Gardens, Orangeries and Parks as an Integral Part of the Cabinet of Natural History of Princess Anna Jabłonowska, née Sapieha” – Prof. Iwona Arabas, Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences
11:00–11:20 – “The Plant Collection of Wawrzyniec Dzieduszycki in the Light of His Correspondence with Magdalena Morska, née Dzieduszycka” – Dr Izabela Kopania, Royal Łazienki Museum
11:20–11:40 – “The Plants of Gdańsk Naturalists (1637–1764): Text, Image, Object” – Dr Katarzyna Pękacka-Falkowska, Department of History and Philosophy of Medical Sciences, Poznań University of Medical Sciences
11:40–12:00 – Discussion
Chair: Dr Izabela Kopania
12:20–12:40 – “Gdańsk Botanical Drawings in the Early Modern Period” – Dr Anna Sobecka, Institute of Art History, University of Gdańsk
12:40–13:00 – “Herba, Borus, Plantarum Exoticarum – the Unfinished Herbarium of Helwing and Boretius” – Dr Maja Graniszewska, Herbarium, Faculty of Biology, University of Warsaw
13:00–13:20 – “The Migration of Dried Plants – the Problem of the Dispersion of Polish Botanical Collections on the Example of the Herbarium from the Former Schaffgotsch Collection” – Dr Magdalena Grenda-Kurmanow, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
13:20–13:40 – “Between Aesthetics and Practicality. Plantings in the Royal Łazienki and the Belweder Garden in the Light of the Chief Gardener’s 1904 Report” – Magdalena Lewna, MA, Royal Łazienki Museum
13:40–14:00 – Discussion
15:00–16:00 – Garden walk with Urszula Piekutowska, Gardens Department, Royal Łazienki Museum, curator of the Łazienki collection of tub-grown plants
Meeting point: Terrace of the Palace on the Isle
Concept and organisation: Dr Izabela Kopania, Art Department; Magdalena Lewna, Research Department