Mikołaj Szczęsny Potocki

Mikołaj Szczęsny Potocki (1845-1921) was the son of Mieczysław (from the Tulczyn branch of the Potocki family) and Emilia, née Świeykowska. From his youth, he lived in Paris. In 1870, he married the Italian princess Emanuela Pignatelli de Cerchiara. After his father died in 1878, he inherited a vast estate. He died childless in Paris, passing his fortune and works of art to his distant relative, Alfred Potocki of Łańcut. Among the works of art transported from Paris to the Castle in Łańcut in 1923, there was a marble bust of Mikołaj Szczęsny Potocki. It was made by the French sculptor Charles Henri Joseph Cordier (1827-1905) in 1879. It depicts a mature man with his head turned three-quarters to the right, balding, with an oval face of fine features and a moustache. The portrayed is wearing a shirt and a frockcoat. Under the lined collar of his shirt, he is wearing a breastplate moved to the left lapel of his frockcoat. The drapery over his right shoulder, arranged in diagonal folds and falling to the corner of the pedestal, frames the bust. Barbara Trojnar