What do the Potockis need an art collection for, namely on the Art Collecting in the Potocki Family exhibition at the Museum of King John III’s Palace at Wilanów

It is the assumptions, goals, and effects of the new permanent display mounted at the Museum of King John III’s Palace at Wilanów titled Art Collecting in the Potocki Family that are the topic of the present paper. The Exhibition presents a less known fragment of the Wilanów Palace’s history when it was owned by the Potockis: Aleksandra née Lubomirski and Stanisław Kostka, their son Aleksander, and grandson August and his spouse Aleksandra née Potocki. The three generations of the Pilawa-coat-of-arms family wrote a new, albeit extremely important chapter in the history of the former royal and magnate residence, placing in it the Museum of Art and the Memorial Site of the history of the Polish nation for almost a hundred years The Potockis amassed artistic collections and national mementoes, and introduced changes to the layout of the private spaces of the residence in order to adjust them to serving museum purposes. In harmony with the Potockis’ idea, the systematically growing collection turned into a treasure opened to the general public. It is the first entry in the Wilanów Guest Book: 5 August 1805 that is regarded to have been the launch of the Museum’s public operation. In its narrative and layout the new display refers to the Potockis’ Museum. The interiors of the garden gallery on the Palace’s first floor have been transformed according to ico -nographic records from the 19th and early 20th century. In the southern gallery we remind of the Library once functioning here, in the northern one, in turn, we recall Warsaw’s important cultural event from 1856: Exhibition of Antiquities. As a result of the introduced changes new display spaces have been created: the Historical Cabinet, Print Cabinet, and the Iconographic Cabinet. The first is dedicated to national mementoes, whereas the latter two are cosy display rooms of objects on paper.