Potocki family playing polo

Łańcut, owned by the Potocki family, was not only the first but also the only Polish private estate where polo matches were held. The two sons of the Roman Potocki family were active in polo, and they were the ones who inspired the introduction of the sport to Łańcut in 1911, with the creation of the entire infrastructure, especially the polo square and sports stables, and the breeding of polo ponies. The idea of adding polo to the equestrian traditions of Łańcut was a natural enrichment, but also another foreign borrowing taken directly from the traditions of the British Empire, which the Potocki, as Anglomaniacs, always followed. In the Austria-Hungary, to which Łańcut belonged under the partitions, the Potocki family came into contact with polo in Pest through contacts with the Hungarian aristocracy, where a polo club existed from 1901. Interestingly, the first polo initiatives in Vienna took place in the same year as in Łańcut – 1911. Jerzy Potocki, the younger of the Third Entailer’s sons, had come into contact with polo earlier. From 1906, he had been studying at Oxford and from 1908 he belonged to the Oxford University Polo Tournament. The elder son, Alfred Antoni, only started playing polo in 1909 while studying for a few months at Magdalen College in Oxford. After the First World War and after the death of his father, Alfred Antoni Potocki returned to polo, which he then turned into a separate sport, and not, as it had been before the First World War, a sporting, elitist pastime, an amusement offered during the stays of distinguished guests in Łańcut. In 1925 the Entailer decided to organise his own polo team. It was formed, apart from Alfred and Jerzy, by their cousins Roman and Józef, sons of Józef Potocki from Antoniny. In Poland, the Łańcut team participated in July 1929 in a polo competition during the General National Exhibition in Poznań, held to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Poland’s independence, and it won the tournament. The Poznań victory stands behind the horse portrait of the Łańcut Entailer painted by Wojciech Kossak. It depicts Alfred Potocki on a grey pony at the moment the ball is struck. However, Kossak anti-dated the painting: the signature indicates that the painting was created earlier, in 1925, and in Łańcut. The painter used to do that when he was late (sometimes by several years) with painting a commissioned portrait – then the signature included the date of the original order of the painting, not its completion. Aldona Cholewianka-Kruszyńska