Centrum Dziedzictwa i Badań Proweniencyjnych IS PAN oraz Szkoła Doktorska Anthropos IPAN zapraszają na wykład wybitnej badaczki kultury dworu saskiego w Dreźnie.
A Souvenir Album from the Marquess of Titchfield’s Sojourn in Warsaw in 1759: the sources and significance of the carnival costumes of the „Inventions Masquerade allerhand Nationes” hosted by Jerzy August Mniszech and Carl Leonhard Biebersteinduring carnival that year
Instytut Sztuki PAN, Warszawa ul. Długa 26, sala wykładowa
czwartek, 8.10.2026, 16.00–17.30
At least two masquerade balls were held in Warsaw in February 1759, with the new Duke of Courland, Prince Charles of Saxony (1733–96), in attendance. The Marquess of Titchfield’s souvenir album, in the collection of the Dukes of Portland at Welbeck Abbey (UK), contains watercolors of thirty-one
individuals wearing ‘his-and-her’ masquerade costumes representing pastoral or regional types, foreign nations, Olympian gods, the trades, the elements, or actors and actresses. Most of the sheets are captioned in French and twenty-six are also inscribed, in another hand, with the names of the men and women of the Polish court who wore the various outfits. While not intended as portraits, many of the illustrations derive from albums of engravings published as collector’s items and artistic resources as were collected by the Saxon court for use in mounting festival events. It is even possible the masquerade costumes were manufactured in Saxony and traveled between Dresden and Warsaw as needed, like so much of the court equipment required by the king and the court as they progressed from place to place.
MAUREEN CASSIDY-GEIGER is a specialist in European decorative arts and court culture and patterns of collecting and display, with the court of Dresden her primary focus. Based in New York, she was curator of the exhibitions Fragile Diplomacy: Meissen Porcelain for European Courts, ca. 1710–63 (BGC/NYC, 2007–2008) and The Grand Cure [Die Grande Kur]: A Disabled Saxon Prince and his Tour of Italy, 1738–40 (SKD/Dresden, 2018). Her current research topics include the history of devotional sculpture in Meissen porcelain, ca. 1710–1790, and a survey and comparison of the privy purses (spending accounts) of Queen Maria Josepha (1699–1757) and her son, Crown Prince Friedrich Christian (1722–63). Figs. Anonymous artist, Costumes of a Hungarian Man and a Hungarian Woman, worn by Josef Jan Ossoliński and his daughter Marianna, or by Marianna Wielopolski; Costumes of a Chinese Man and a Chinese Woman, worn by Ignacy Przebendowski and (possibly) Anna Teresa Ossolińska Ca. 1759. Watercolors. (Collection of the Dukes of Portland, Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, UK).