Royal Exequies in the Warsaw Capuchin Church in the 18th Century

Hanna Osiecka-Samsonowicz

Abstract

The Capuchin Church in Warsaw was one of the major sacral foundations of John III Sobieski who passed away in 1696. Owing to a complex political situation, the King’s remains were not buried then at the Wawel, but only in 1697, following a modest ceremony, they were deposited at the Capuchin Monastery, while his heart was placed in the Order’s archives. In 1700, the body of his grandson John, son of James Sobieski, was deposited next to the monarch’s coffin, while in 1717, the coffin of Marie Casimire Sobieski who passed away in France, was added there. In March that year, as instructed and financed by Augustus II the Strong, exequies were performed to pray for the Queen. The ceremony had an important propaganda undertone. Not only did the bier feature inscriptions exposing the merits of Augustus II who made sure the late Queen would rest in peace, but also thanks to the resolution of the so-called Silent Seym in session merely a fortnight before, he had made an attempt at reforming the state’s political system, and introduced the long-awaited peace to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

At least as of 1731, James Sobieski was trying in vain to organize a dignified burial of the remains of his parents which were decaying in the Warsaw Monastery. However, the indebted Prince could not afford their costly exportation to the Cracow Cathedral and the funeral there. It is likely that he was the one who decided to have exequies performed in the Capuchin Church on the 50^thanniversary of the Relief of Vienna, with his parents’ coffins lying in state. It seems likely that precisely this planned ceremony has to be connected with the drawing of the castrum doloris found at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC attributed to Alessandro Galli-Bibiena, and, according to the inscription, executed for the victor from Vienna and his spouse (Fig. 1). From around 1716 Alessandro worked as an architect at the court of James Sobieski’s brother-in- law Charles III Philip Pfalz-Neuburg who may have commissioned the design of the catafalque from the artist coming from a famous family of decorators. Nonetheless, the design, not mentioned in any studies dedicated to the Galli-Bibiena workshop, was never implemented.

            When on 1 February 1733 Augustus II died in Warsaw, the issue of the remains of John III and Marie Casimire awaiting their burial at the Wawel returned to the fore; the decision was made for their remains together with Wettin’s body to be transported to Cracow, which took place in August that year. On the instruction of James Sobieski the coffins of John III, Marie Casimire, and of their grandson lay in state in the Capuchin Church already on 15 May. The description of the church’s funerary decoration is rendered in a hand-written Latin report published also in the Polish translation. In front of the chancel a castrum doloris was raised containing the coffins of the royal couple and their grandson, before which the box with the heart of John III was exposed. Above, a velvet canopy was suspended, while in the corners four plinths crowned with globes and eagles holding laurel twigs of which silver candle holders grew were placed. The catafalque and the coffins, the high altar and the Church’s walls were decorated with crimson cloths, while the ceiling featured al fresco compositions related to the idea of the ceremony and the King's reign.

The body of Augustus II was transported to the Warsaw Castle, and the monarch’s heart was sent to Dresden; meanwhile, his viscera were deposited ‘de mandato Reipublicae’ in the crypt of the Capuchin Church. It was only on 31 January 1736 that the ceremony of the transfer of the vessel containing the royal viscera to a marble urn raised in the middle of the ‘oratory’ adjacent to the Church took place; the oratory’s remodelling into a chapel, later called ‘Royal’, had been commissioned by Augustus III the year before, however, works on its decoration had not been completed. Thanks to the Latin hand-written account of the event and a press note it is known that in the Church as such only a plinth crowned with regalia was placed before the high altar. During the exequies held in the Capuchin Church on the King’s death anniversary in 1737, an analogical plinth was surrounded by eight pillars-guéridons resembling herms in shape, adorned with fruit and plant garlands: four lower ones culminated in crowns, while the higher ones featured eagles perched on globes. It may have been this very composition (or its version) that was rendered in the drawing by Joachim Daniel von Jauch (Figs. 5–7) preserved in the Dresden Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; he was the designer of the decoration for royal exequies and also of the Royal Chapel and its furnishing completed after 1737 (Figs. 8–9). Other drawings by Jauch from the Dresden archives register the designs of the Church’s decor on the occasion of subsequent death anniversaries of Augustus II. The explanation featured in the drawings suggests that the illustrated elements were reused annually with only minor modifications. Interestingly, the composition of eight pillars-guéridons, was almost identical with the ones visible in the above-mentioned design, with the only difference that the four lower ones were interconnected with ogees forming a richly decorated canopy over the plinths with the regalia (Figs. 10–13). Similar pillars-guéridons were placed on the catafalque corners in the Collegiate Church of St John in Warsaw during the exequies for Augustus II in 1735; the decoration for that ceremony had also been the artist’s work (Figs. 14a–15). Eclectic designs by Jauch suggest that in the case of pillars-guéridons he was inspired by French print pattern books (Figs. 16a–b, 17). The traditional elements, serving mainly the décor of royal and magnate residences, were, however, given by him a new function in the funerary arrangement, and they  in a way constituted his trademark in this domain of his art. Therefore, it can be assumed that the decoration of the Capuchin Church for the exequies for the Sobieskis in 1733 with the four pillars with the globes and eagles on the top, known from the descriptions, were also the artist’s work. In the concept of the canopy Jauch resorted to the tradition of the Roman Baroque, though this may have also happened through the mediation of French art present at the court of the House of Wettin. The finial in the form of four converging volutes at the top, echoing Bernini’s canopy in the Vatican Basilica was frequent in France in altar structures popularized thanks to prints, beginning with that in the Paris Notre-Dame du Val-de-Grâce Church (1665) almost until the end of the 18^th century (Figs. 23–25).

Wettin’s viscera were placed in the Capuchin Church in order to benefit from the legend of John III, but also to reduce the latter’s importance in order to serve the Saxon political propaganda initiated by Augustus II with the exequies for Marie Casimire. The tradition of commemorating the anniversary of the death of Augustus II cultivated for over twenty-five years, until the end of the reign of Augustus III (1763), recorded in the press, led to the fact that Augustus II overshadowed the figure of the Church’s founder. It was only in 1830 that the box with the heart of John III was transferred to the Royal Chapel rebuilt then. In 1919, the first mass after Poland had regained independence was celebrated there: it was dedicated to John III. Thanks to the preserved photographs there is no doubt that from the elements kept in the monastery it was the catafalque with a wood-carved volute canopy designed for Augustus II (Figs. 27, 28a–f, 29), and not the castrum doloris of John III and Marie Casimire from 1733 that was recreated. The structure from 1919 was raised again in 1924 in St John’s Cathedral in Warsaw for the funeral of Henryk Sienkiewicz (Fig. 30), and for the last time, again as a historic monument connected with John III, at an exhibition mounted at the National Museum in Warsaw in 1933.