Walerii Tarnowskiej fascynacja włoską rzeźbą w podróży po Italii 1803–1804
Waleria Tarnowska’s Fascination with Italian Sculpture during Her Journey to Italy, 1803–1804

Summary/Abstract: The article concerns the journey to Italy which Countess Waleria Tarnowska madein 1803–1804 and her attitude to the works of sculpture she saw there. In the diary she keptduring her travels, which on the considerations presented here are based, she noted downdescriptions of monuments and art collections, included references to artists she met andpurchases made in their studios, as well as her own artistic impressions. The principal placein these notes is held by the oeuvre of Antonio Canova, with whom Tarnowska establisheda close relationship. During her stay in Rome, she acquired, for a huge sum of money, one ofhis most famous works: a statue of Perseus (now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museumof Art in New York), which is probably not a replica, as is commonly believed, but a primeversion of the statue now at the Vatican. Tarnowska was less interested in sculpture than inpainting, but she viewed, and included in her records, an impressive number of sculptures,aiming to give as complete an information on them as possible and noting the feelings thattheir viewing aroused in her. Her diary is an interesting example of the documentation ofexperiences gained during Italian sojourns by members of the European elite of the time anda rarity in the context of late 18th- and early 19th-century travel writing.

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