Introduction: Musée des Monuments Polonais

Just a few years after establishing the famous Musée des Monuments Français in 1795, another, relatively similar museum, was created on the other side of Europe. Just like Alexandre Lenoir's establishment, it collected the memorials of the past, and was an answer to a great historical turmoil. Also like the Musée, it aimed at evoking memories of and sentiments about the national history. Finally, similarly to the French museum, although it was doomed to ephemeral existence, surviving only thirty years, memory of it remained vivid and reverberated for many decades. This museum was the Temple of the Sibyl (Fig. 5.1.) opened in 1801 by Princess Izabela Czartoryska (1746–1835) at her estate in Puławy, around 100 kilometers south of Warsaw, which was then part of Russia.

The analogy with the Parisian Musée des Monuments Français should not lead us too far, however, as there were significant differences between the two sites. The museum in Puławy was a private aristocratic initiative on a smaller scale. On the other hand, the collections were displayed in a specially created building, originating from a unique, individual historical experience, namely the reaction to the loss of Polish independence in 1795.