The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth territories were formed in 1569 as a result of the Union of Lublin, which joined Lithuania and Poland in the Commonwealth. Together with territories from Lithuania, King Sigismund II (1548–1572) ordered the incorporation of the Podlachia region, as well as the southern Ukrainian lands of Volhynia, Bratslav, and Kyiv, which became palatinates. From the second half of the 16th century and until the Union of Brest in 1596, Polish magnates massively expanded into Ukraine in order to exploit uninhabited agricultural lands. Later, the Khmelnytsky Uprising (1648–57) and the creation of the Hetmanate (1649) significantly reduced Western cultural influence in these areas. After the Truce of Andrusovo in 1667, the territory of the Ukrainian Left Bank came under Russian rule. The Right Bank areas (excluding the lands of Kyiv) remained in the Commonwealth until 1772, when they were lost during the partition of Poland.1
In the 18th century, French architects migrated to Right Bank Ukraine, whose art and culture remained oriented toward the West. The aim of this text is to identify in detail the reasons for and paths of their journeys to Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian territories. With this migration, we can observe the alternative career models and the social profile of the administrators (royal court, nobility, church organizations). An important aspect of this process is building their political influence among the state’s elite and their geography of activity. The research is based on representatives of the construction community who came directly or indirectly from France, were educated in French schools, or spoke French as a first language. The engineers and builders discussed here, a small selection of the many immigrant builders, have been selected for their importance and the scope of their activities in the lands of Ukraine and the Commonwealth. The time frame spans the reign of John III Sobieski (1674–96) and the impact of his artistic initiatives (until the early 18th century) to the Third Partition of Poland at the end of the reign of King Stanisław August Poniatowski (1764–95) as a moment of a significant decline in artistic patronage.
Franco-Polish architectural relations are the subject of a relatively small number of studies. The topic was raised in the early 20th century by Louis Réau and Pierre Francastel and their foundational studies on the transfer of French art to Russia and Eastern Europe.2 Until recently, most of the studies in this field have been monographical; the first syntheses were published only a few years ago.3 The migration of engineers and architects from France to other parts of Europe and to Russia in particular has been relatively well studied and researched.4 However, the Polish context requires a comprehensive study, an extension of the existing research, and which will be taken as a blueprint, as well as a methodological basis for this paper, inspired by Olga Medvedkova’s pioneering research on artistic migrations to the czarist court and magnate courts of Russia.5
The professional division between an architect and an engineer in the Commonwealth was blurred and illegible. Very often, due to the lack of an educated artistic staff in the 18th century, engineers were employed as architects and vice versa. While the history of engineer’s knowledge, methods, and tools has been the subject of much research, their careers remain largely unknown, leading to many inaccuracies. The artists discussed in this article depended on the client system, were employed at a specific court, and received projects and remuneration. The 18th-century professions of architect and engineer are inextricably linked with mobility, which constitutes their identity, wandering on princely demands and the search for patrons.
The architectural market in the Commonwealth and Ukraine from the 17th century to the end of the 18th, had been dominated by Italian circles, which also contributed to the difficulties French architects had in establishing their careers at higher professional levels. They often experienced conflicts with the local artistic milieu, and their work ethic was often questioned. The conflict between a certain engineer de Flenierce and Kazimierz Jan Szczuka concerning the modernization of the town of Szczuczyn should be mentioned here. When the Frenchman did not live up to the magnate’s expectations, he was fired and replaced with the Italian Giuseppe Fontana II in 1692, which ended his architectural career. The same fate befell Pierre Ricaud de Tirregaille, Jean Claude Pingeron (1730–1795), and many others. The best example is the career of Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond (1679–1719), a Parisian architect whose aim was to turn Saint Petersburg into a modern metropolis. Because of his Italian and Russian colleagues’ animosity, he was not able to convince the local workmen to cut timber in the manner he desired.6 Similar failures in the 18th century seem to have been more common than success stories. Perhaps in the case of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania, they constituted a pattern.
The French also had little impact on art theory in the 17th-century Common-wealth. In contrast to Prussia or Austria, where they published scientific treaties, the only manifestation of such activities in the Commonwealth is the “Traité d’architecture civile ou la manière de construire toutes sortes de bastimens selon la manière italienne et françoise,” an unpublished manuscript. Its author, the engineer Deza de Vanjou, was employed at the court of the Lubomirski family, perhaps working at the castle in Rivne in Ukraine.7
Builders at the court of Marie Louise Gonzaga
The influx of French artists to the Commonwealth began with the reign of Marie Louise Gonzaga (1646–67). At the behest of Cardinal Mazarin, she first married Władysław IV (1598–1645) and then John II Casimir Vasa (1609–1672); she established a French colony in Warsaw and later in other parts of the kingdom. From Paris, she brought with her a group of courtiers who were married off to the most influential Polish and Lithuanian magnates, strengthening the French faction in the Commonwealth.8 During her reign, the Commonwealth politicians adopted elements of the French court’s model in politics and culture.9
From an architectural point of view, the queen’s most important decision was to bring three religious orders from France with the aim of strengthening the sense of identity among the French. The first convent was the Congregation of the Mission, founded by Vincent de Paul. In 1651, they received the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw. A year later, the Filles de la Charité arrived at the court from Paris, with the task of teaching French to the poorest of society.10 In 1654, the Filles de la Visitation arrived in Warsaw with their own artistic court from Paris.11 They brought with them paintings by Claude Callot,12 and invited sculptors as well as two architects, Lazare Nollet and a certain de Baluze, who worked on the reconstruction of the convent of the Visitation of Holy Mary.13 Both were probably associated with the order of visitation or missionaries and there is no record of them continuing their activities in the Commonwealth.
The pro-French policy of the royal court and religious convents opened up new routes for artisans, actors, musicians, and merchants from France. At this time, the first builders and architects of French origin appeared in the Commonwealth. Among them were Antoine Champantier (1625–1667), a Jesuit friar, who came with the queen directly from Paris and stayed at her court in the years 1665–67, advising her because of his substantial architectural knowledge.14 This first group of construction advisers did not have a deep impact on the Commonwealth’s architecture; they were most likely builders, not engineers or architects. They were hired to do specific, technical work, after which they continued on their artistic path or returned to France. The lack of success in these lands was probably due to the strong position of the builders of other origins who dominated the architectural market in the second half of the 17th century. Italian and Dutch architects such as Agostino Locci, Giovanni Battista Gisleni, and Tilman van Gameren were well acquainted with the architectural patterns of the Ancien Regime era and created a strongly connected professional environment operating in the Commonwealth for centuries.15 The demand for French emigrants was therefore probably low.
Military engineers at magnate courts as career models
The first major influx of military engineers from France was related to the mass emigration of Huguenots, forced to flee France after Louis XIV issued the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685. Their exodus was illegal under French law, but despite that, it lasted until around 1720.16 In 1688, they established a Calvinist community in Gdańsk.17 In general, it was merchants who settled in the Commonwealth; there are fewer examples of military engineers, entrepreneurs, craftsmen, teachers, and professionals.18 The engineers who arrived in Eastern Europe were mostly Huguenots, such as Hoccart and Philippe Dupont (1650–1725),19 who were brought to the court of John III Sobieski. Despite being a staunch opponent of the Huguenots and a self-proclaimed defender of the Catholic faith, the king still benefited from their services. Dupont ended up being one of the ruler’s closest associates, thus earning him a knighthood.20 Huguenots, as well-educated engineers, were quickly promoted in military structures. However, they were never treated as architects or artists.21
Huguenot migration had started much earlier, though. The author of the first description of Ukraine, Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan (1600–1675), immigrated from a Huguenot family.22 An outstanding geographer and military engineer, he came to Ukraine together with Marion, an engineer known only by his last name, brought to Poland in order to rebuild the country after numerous wars and to strengthen the defense line on the Ukrainian border. In 1639, Beauplan was involved in a military expedition to explore the Dnieper, led by Stanisław Koniecpolski. The French engineer created many maps of Ukraine (fig. 1) and published Description d’Ukraine qui sont plusieurs provinces du royaume de Pologne contenues depuis les confins de la Moscovie, jusques aux limites de la Transilvanie, ensemble leurs mœurs, façons de vivre et de faire la guerre (1650).23
At the turn of the 18th century, military engineers educated in France migrated to the Commonwealth in large numbers, most often through Brandenburg in Prussia. There was a huge demand in the Republic of Poland for qualified military engineers, due to several factors, the most important of which was the lack of schools and workshops in the kingdom. France produced a large number of military engineers, and the supply of engineers greatly exceeded royal demand (from 1716 to 1739, the applications were four times greater than the places available).24 Each reorganization of the engineer corps, in 1718, 1754, and 1791 (the French system limited their number to 380) led to the sudden oversaturation of the market, and many technicians were forced to find other work. They often converted to infantry or cavalry, went to the colonies or sovereigns, benefiting from the reputation of French training.25 They migrated to Austria under the rule of the Habsburgs, England, or the Netherlands, places where they could improve their living conditions; some even joined the nobility.26
The position of a military engineer in the Commonwealth changed along with professionalization. During the reigns of Augustus II the Strong (1697–1733) and Augustus III of Saxony (1735–63), most architects were occupied with producing military architecture. At that time, there was a constant migration of artists from the Dresden court to the Commonwealth, including the French architects Zacharias Longuelune (1669–1748), Jean de Bodt (1670–1745), sculptors Jean-Joseph Vinache (1696–1751) and François and Pierre Coudray (1678–1727 and 1713–1770), as well as painter Louis de Silvestre (1675–1760).27 Artists such as these, often students or lecturers from the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture or officer schools, were acquainted with contemporary trends in French art and introduced a classicist, linear variety of Baroque into the Commonwealth’s architecture, along with new urban solutions. The main center for the education and migration of architects was the Bauamt, founded by Augustus the Strong as the Warsaw branch of the Dresden Oberbauamt (Saxon building office), established in the 1790s, and modeled directly on the office of Bâtiments du Roi of Louis XIV.28 In preparing to launch the Bauamt, as early as 1697, the king brought to Warsaw the Frenchman Lambert Lambion and the Saxons Johann Friedrich Karcher (1650–1725) and Marcus Conrad Dietze (1658–1704). In 1710, the Königliche Bauamt in Warsaw was founded, headed by Johann Christoph von Naumann (1664–1742).29 The positions were closely related to the military ranks. It was the beginning of educating architects and engineers on the French model in the Commonwealth. Magnates took advantage of the presence of well-educated architects, and as a result, works of higher artistic quality started to appear.30
Military engineers at magnates’ courts and unaffiliated architects
Some architects and engineers were not associated with Bauamt and worked outside the Wettin court. Beginning in the 17th century, most of these were employed in the courts of magnates in Ukraine. Magnate families such as the Sieniawscys, Wiśniowieckis (fig. 2), and Czartoryscy were very familiar with French art and culture, which meant that they turned toward French artists. Polish and Ukrainian magnates directly commissioned work in Paris; for example, complete Rococo interiors designed by Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (fig. 3) were imported from Paris to palaces in Warsaw (1737) and Puławy (1751).31 Building designs were also purchased directly from France, or architects were recruited through intermediaries and art dealers.32 Magnates also had an interest in architectural education: for example, Prince Janusz Modest Sanguszko went to Paris in 1763 to take lessons from Jean-François Blondel.33 The architectural choices made by the Commonwealth’s highest social classes thus seem to have been well-informed, with some patrons even participating actively in the design process. For example, De Bleur (De Bler),34 known only by his family name, was brought to the court of Elżbieta Helena Sieniawska as an engineer for Jean-Baptiste Dessieur,35 and also worked at the court of her husband, Adam Mikołaj Sieniawski; Pierre Hiche (and his brothers: Antoni and Franciszek Bernard36), educated in French schools, acted on behalf of Aleksander August Czartoryski. These builders and engineers were not associated with the Bauamt but commissioned by the upper echelons of the nobility.
From the beginning of the 18th century, French construction professionals migrated across Eastern and Central Europe. In Russia, Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond, educated in France and already well-established there, imported the art of the French garden for Peter the Great, while Jean-Baptiste Michel Vallin de la Mothe (1729–1800) introduced elements of the styles of Jean François Blondel and Jacques-Ange Gabriel into Russian architecture. Jean-François Thomas de Thomon (1760–1813), who was educated in Paris, started his professional career at the Austrian courts and later worked for the Lubomirski family in Łańcut (1792–93) (fig. 4).37 In 1794, he entered into the service of Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy, recommended by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun.38 He had been working in Russia since 1799, and with Andrei Voronikhin and Andreyan Zacharov formed the triad of proponents of Alexandrian classicism.39
A French art colony with specialized engineers and architects from Lorraine worked in exile in Austria at the same time. Among them were Jean-Baptiste Le Pan (active 1707–43),40 Jean-Nicolas Jadot (1710–1761),41 and the gardener Louis Gervais (1702–1756).42 Many of them, such as Jadot, obtained nobility.43 As Alain Petitot writes, thanks to patronage from the state and the highest social classes, these architects managed to achieve professional success.44 In the case of French immigrants to the Commonwealth, it was quite the opposite; there seems to have been no qualified architect among them. Architects employed by magnates, such as Jacques d’Après de Blangey (active 1696–1720), Pierre Ricaud de Tirregaille (1726–1776), and Jean-Baptiste Dessieur (active 1689–1739), had begun their careers in the Commonwealth as military engineers, having only training and experience with military buildings. Due to the lack of qualified architectural staff after the end of major conflicts, they were engaged as such. This is the opposite for the French military engineers present in the Austrian, Prussian, and Czech ranks: Jean Baptiste d’Avrange or Theodore de Thomerot45 spent their entire career in the army, performing engineering, not architectural, work.
The architect with the greatest artistic achievements was Ricaud de Tirregaille. Born in 1726 in Provence,46 he studied at the Academia de Matemáticas in Barcelona and later at the Académie Militaire du Génie in Brussels. He arrived in the Commonwealth in 1752, and was employed as a lieutenant in the Jan Klemens Branicki walking regiment. He worked in Warsaw from 1752 until 1762, with a break for projects in Lviv between 1757 and 1760.47 His main commissions came from magnate families including the Branickis, Potockis, and Mniszeks. Until 1758, he worked on the water installations in the garden at the palace in Białystok. In the following years, he devoted himself entirely to architectural activities, mainly in Ukraine, such as the project of the palace and gardens in the city of Krystynopol (fig. 5), commissioned by Saleza Potocki. He had also made several buildings in Lviv: a palace for Antoni Bielski (after 1757), another for Feliks Czacki (1758–60), and the palace garden for the Greek Catholic Metropolitans in Lviv.48 After eleven years in the Commonwealth, unable to achieve a high social position, and having numerous conflicts with Prussian and Italian architects, Tirregaille moved to Potsdam, the Prussian capital, where he joined the army of Frederick II and was promoted to colonel. He died in 1776.49
Another military engineer, then an architect who was unable to achieve a professional success in the Commonwealth was Blangey, commissioned in Wiśniowiec in Volhynia around 1720 by Michał Serwacy Wiśniowiecki, Grand Chancellor and Hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Blangey, a major in the royal army, is an enigmatic and little researched figure.50 They probably met in 1696; Wiśniowiecki was a committed Francophile, who had spent time at a military school in Paris. Blangey might have arrived in the Commonwealth in order to strengthen the country’s southeastern border, as it was common for the Saxon Army to employ foreign military specialists for that purpose. The architect’s high position is evidenced by the fact that he was planning to build an ancestral chapel at the Discalced Carmelite Church in Wiśniowiec, where he was buried,51 but despite this, he did not have a greater architectural career in the Commonwealth.
Dessieur was present at the court of Hetman Jan Branicki from 1689, employed with the rank of military colonel.52 He undertook his first architectural activities at the court of Adam Mikołaj and Elżbieta Sieniawski in 1702, in Międzyborzan, Podolia, at the residence and the temple. He was involved in the castle’s renovation and modernization, the establishment of a new garden, and the design and construction of a wooden church. While working on the Sieniawski residences in Warsaw (1717–21), he came into conflict with Agostino Vincenzo Locci, the main architect for the city of Warsaw. Nevertheless, he enjoyed the great trust of the Hetman, thanks to whom he obtained the title of superintendent, manager of construction factories. Such a social promotion was rare for architects in the Commonwealth.
These well-educated military engineers undertook architectural activities, despite their lack of education in this field. Unfortunately, due to the absence of royal patronage, which condemned them to the mercy of magnates, the profession was usually not very profitable. All the Frenchmen mentioned here were forced to work for the army or to return to France,53 or to neighboring countries. As a result, the influence of French art in Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania was limited compared to Prussia and Austria.
The colony at Stanisław August Poniatowski’s court: triumph of French architecture
Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732–1798, reign 1764–95), thanks to a developed cultural policy and extensive contacts with France, managed to bring to Poland educated architects, who were recognized at European courts. In 1764, Victor Louis (1731–1800) began working with the king,54 for whom he designed innovative projects for the reconstruction of the rooms of the Grand Suite: Tronowa, the Senator’s Hall, the Portrait Room, the King’s Bedroom, and the Boudoir (fig. 6).55 His projects were never implemented, but they had a huge impact on the development of Polish classicism.56 After returning to France, Louis maintained contact with the Polish court, designing other elements of the royal castle until 1777.57 After studying in Paris with Blondel and Louis, Anatole Amoudru (1739–1812) arrived in Warsaw in 1765, most likely with the latter, bringing projects for the king. He was paid for taking measurements of the hall designed by Louis and quickly returned to France, where he further developed his career.58 Another qualified architect at Poniatowski’s court was Marc-René de Montalembert, a military engineer and fortification specialist who resided in Poland in 1759–60, because of his engagement with the Russian Army. He designed the floor heating system for the castle’s Marble Cabinet. Like other architects, he later returned to France. Charles-Pierre Coustou (1721–1797), a member of the Académie Royale d’Archi-tecture, who designed the mansion in Jordanowice for Andrzej Mokronowski, also sent designs for the palace, made according to the latest models.59
These architects, associated with the Versailles court, did not migrate to the Commonwealth, as it would not have been profitable for them. But they created designs specially for their Polish clientele, thus the newest models of early classicism reached the court. During this period, architects began to be employed differently at the magnates’ court, not as builders and engineers, but as artists creating concepts, later completed by local communities, or not built at all, left in the design phase and valued as equal to the finished work.
It turns out that it is necessary to investigate the problem related to the alleged goût français of the Polish nobility in the second half of the 18th century. The myth present in Polish literature about the French nature of architectural designs and interior design should be verified in many instances. Although many residences were called French Versailles, this does not mean that they were perceived in the era as copies of French buildings. Often, French architects and engineers were brought in not because of their nationality, but because of their technical skills. What today’s scholars call “French forms” were often associated with the culture of Italy, the Netherlands, and even Persia. A good example is the palace of Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki in Tulczyn, designed by Joseph Lacroix from France and considered “a beautiful house with an Italian flavor.”60
In this article, we explored the temporal and social intersection necessary to understand the phenomenon of migration of the construction environment from France to the Polish-Lithuanian Republic and Ukraine. By avoiding typical analysis of architectural works, this study focused on the bigger picture and the changes that affect the reception of certain architectural forms. The migration of architects and engineers to Poland was directly dependent on Pan-European phenomena. The development of research about the role and education of architects and engineers migrating from France to Poland allows for a significant step toward the studies of cultural transfer, artistic migration, and the figure of the architect and engineer in the Commonwealth. The architects mentioned did not have great careers in the Commonwealth and Ukraine. They did not form any coherent movement and treated their stay in the Commonwealth as a stop in their future careers. This was due to many factors, including the lack of organized royal patronage, as was the case in Prussia or Austria. Architects from France were employed by the highest social class, the magnates, and were dependent on their provincial tastes. Without freedom to explore and deepen their engagement with forms inherited from their education, they did not have the influence, once thought to be much more uniform and pervasive, in the context of the architecture in the Commonwealth.