  HOTEL DE MONACO, Hôtel de Sagan, czy wreszcie blednie : Hôtel de Talleyrand - tak nazywa sie siedzibe Ambasady Polskiej w Paryzu. Usytuowana jest ona w dawnej, arystokratycznej dzielnicy Faubourg Saint-Germain, w sasiedztwie esplanady Inwalidów, wsród XVII-wiecznych palaców ulicy swietego Dominika. Dzis mieszcza one najczesciej urzedy francuskiej administracji panstwowej, jak Hôtel de Brienne - obecnie Ministerstwo Obrony, Hôtel de Broglie - Ministerstwo Komunikacji, czy Hôtel Kinsky - Departament Muzyki i Teatru. Gmach Ambasady nalezy do najpiekniejszych siedzib przedstawicielstw dyplomatycznych w Paryzu. Byly ponoc nawet próby wynegocjowania od wladz polskich zamiany tego budynku, szczesliwie bezskuteczne.
- Historia palacu jest równie pasjonujaca, jak piekne sa jego wnetrza. Byl jednym z ostatnich wzniesionych w tej czesci dzielnicy. Pierwsze wiadomosci o parceli i zabudowaniach pochodza z poczatków XVIII wieku. Po zmianach wlascicieli teren znalazl sie w 1779 roku w posiadaniu Marie-Catherine de Brignoles, zyjacej w separacji z mezem Honoré-Camille-Léonor Grimaldi, ksieciem Monaco. Zadecydowala ona postawienie nowego palacu na nabytej parceli, w miejsce istniejacych zabudowan, by zblizyc sie w ten sposób do ukochanego, ksiecia Kondeusza, wlasciciela Palais-Bourbon i Hôtel de Lassey (obecnie siedziba Parlamentu francuskiego). Projekt zlecila wzietemu architektowi A.-T. Brongniartowi (1739-1813), autorowi budynku paryskiej Gieldy, nazwanej od jego nazwiska, a takze licznych palacow na obu brzegach Sekwany. Nowa rezydencja miala wspanialoscia i luksusem konkurowac z Hôtel Matignon Grimaldiego (obecnie siedziba premierów Francji). Projektujac Hotel de Monaco, odszedl on od schematu francuskich palaców tego okresu, opartych na dyspozycji entre cour et jardin. Jego koncepcja zblizala sie do otoczonego zielenia pawilonu, wzorowanego na architekturze palladianskiej, o eleganckiej fasadzie i wyrafinowanych wnetrzach.
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Ksiezna, która nad konstrukcja palacu czuwala osobiscie, cieszyla sie nim niedlugo. Podczas Rewolucji wyemigrowala w 1790 do Anglii, gdzie niebawem poslubila Kondeusza. Palac zas wynajmowala ambasadorowi Wielkiej Brytanii, lordowi George'owi Granville'owi a do 1793 roku, kiedy to skonfiskowaly go wladze rewolucyjne. Te zas znalazly kolejnego lokatora w przedstawicielstwie Wielkiej Porty, pozostajacym w nim az do 1809 roku, pomimo kolejnych zmian wlascicieli posesji. W miedzyczasie bowiem palac przeszedl w rece niejakiego Siéyesa, który w 1808 roku odsprzedal go marszalkowi Davout, ksieciu Eckműhl, diukowi Auerstaedt, autorowi wielu napoleonskich wiktorii i gubernatorowi Ksiestwa Warszawskiego, oredownikowi sprawy polskiej. Davout powiekszyl domene zakupujac okoliczne budynki, a w 1817 roku zmienil wystrój wnetrz, zgodnie z panujaca moda : na scianach jedwabie o intensywnych barwach, zlocone obrazy w zyrandolach, kandelabry i wspaniale zegary kominkowe z rzezbionymi figurami, zas calosc umeblowano rzezbionymi meblami ze szlachetnego drzewa.
Po upadku Napoleona marszalek unikal Paryza, wiec wynajmowal najpierw czesc, pózniej zas calosc palacu. Od 1819 mieszkali tu ksiaze Pawel Wirtemberski, ambasador Portugalii markiz Marialva, hrabia Wicklow, diuk Hamilton, lord Grandville. ...
Ewa Bobrowska - Jakubowska
Grzegorz Jakubowski - B. de Weydenthal
2001
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The BROKEN COLLECTION
(of Teofil KWIATKOWSKI paintings)
- Characteristic of a majority of Polish collectors abroad is their focus on polonica. The Polish tragic history and the wartime devastation of the country, particularly its culture, made searching for and stashing national keepsakes compulsive abroad. This practice dates back to the 19th century, exemplified by the collection of the Polish Museum in Rapperswil, the polonica accumulated by the Branicki`s in Montresor, by Adolf Cichowski in Paris or the Czartoryski`s in the Hotel Lambert. Latter-day examples include primarily the collections of Stanislaw Jordanowski, Michal Cieplinski, Tadeusz Kwiatkowski, Barbara Piasecka-Johnson, Ewa and Wojciech Fibak or Tom Podl, created in the United States.
- Among modern American collections that of
Anya and Charles YATES gathered in their house in Princeton merits a mention. The uniqueness of the collection lies not in the fact that neither of the couple was born in Poland, nor in that not once have they visited the country, but rather in the monographic character of the set. - Their searching passion focused exclusively on TEOFIL KWIATKOWSKI, a November Uprising emigre and a painter, who died in France. The starting point for the project was Anya Yates searching her Polish roots. Visiting the Polish Library in Paris in 1996 the couple saw some of the artist's works (possibly the largest collection accumulated in a single location), most of them donated by Kwiatkowski's granddaughters [1].
- Whenever in France, they tried to trace Kwiatkowski. This is how they got to Burgundy and the town of Avallon, where the painter lived in his late days until his death in 1891. They also found the near-by castle of Vault, once owed by the family of Marie-Caroline Jordan, artist's wife. Landscapes of the vicinity of the town and the castle (now converted to a hotel) were frequent topics of the artist's works.
- Teofil Jaxa Kwiatkowski was one of the most interesting and most prominent talents of Polish Romanticism in painting.
Admittedly, due to his dramatic life and long years of emigration, a relatively small number of his canvases has survived in collections in Poland, Born in 1809 to a noble family, Kwiatkowski studied painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Warsaw University in Antoni Blank's studio in the years 1825-1830, He was also a student at the institute of Pedagogy in Warsaw. He fought in the November Uprising in the rank of lieutenant, and following the Polish defeat he was forced to flee to France, where he first got to a camp for Polish military refugees in Avignon. Granted a permit to travel to Paris and supported by the Society of Scientific Assistance he continued his artistic study mentored by French masters: Koenig, Toussaint, Senties, Dulong, and Cogniet. He met eminent members of the Great Emigration and had regular exhibitions in Paris's Salon receiving kudos from French critics (Th.Gautier and A.Houssaye among them). in spite of all this the painter was fairly hard-up in his Paris years. He earned his living by copying paintings in the Louvre and making portraits, of which only a few are known today: unfortunately, a majority of them stayed in the subjects' families. As many as sixty of his portraits owned by the Rapperswil Museum are said to have burnt in Warsaw during World War 11, which was also the portion of the rest of the Museum's collection brought to Poland during the inter-war period.
- Fascinated with the artists, the Yeats began not only exploring his genealogy and history, but also gamering his artistic output, Teofil Kwiatkowski's paintings are rare occasions on the market but the Yates succeeded to collect a fairly representative set of a dozen or so works in a short time.
- Anya and Charles Yates and their two children died on Oct. 6th, 2000 in a plane crash on Martha's Vineyard off the Boston shore, where they had a residence. Created with such passion and faith the collection was broken off. So was the genealogical research. Regretfully, the project is unlikely to be continued any time soon.
Ewa Bobrowska - Jakubowska
Grzegorz Jakubowski - B. de Weydenthal
2001
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