Count Stanislas K. Potocki

Count Stanislaw Kostka Potocki (1755-1821) was the Enlightenment personified. A descendant of one of the most famous Polish aristocratic families, educated in Warsaw, at the Collegium Nobilium, and in Italy, at an academy in Turin, he was successively or simultaneously a traveller, an archaeologist, an art critic, a political polemist, a historian, a connoisseur, a statesman, a high-ranking Freemason, and also a collector and patron of arts. Immortalized by David in a superb horse-riding portrait, he left a lasting memory as minister of education and one of the founders of the University of Warsaw. He immortalized himself as author of some memorable books, in particular of On Art among the Ancients or the Polish Winkelmann (1815). The book authored by Jerzy Mizio³ek, Agata Pietrzak and Krzysztof Pomian seeks to present all the most important achievements of the Count and in particular his role as the founder of both the School of Fine Arts of the University of Warsaw and the Museum at Wilanów as well as to show the originality of his Polish Winckelmann.