Sleigh

City formal sleigh designed to be driven without servants, in a two-horse or four-horse team with a black leather harness with reins. On the horses’ necks there are leather belts with bells sewn onto them. Fastened at the backs, they loosely encircled the horses’ necks and made rhythmic sounds during the ride. This elegant sleigh was ordered by the Third Entailer of Łańcut, Roman Potocki, from the Viennese firm of Sebastian Armbruster, a supplier to the imperial court of Franz-Joseph. Entailer Roman Potocki ordered it from this Viennese carriage company to drive it by himself. As city sleigh – probably used in Vienna – it was originally black in accordance with the rules of the time (they were covered with dark blue paintwork during a renovation in the early 1980s) with a yellow stripe in the middle of the bodywork, which gave them a special, gentleman-like, style. They are also characterised by the elegance and lightness of their silhouette, as the bodywork has a flat footrest and two analogous two-person seats, one behind the other, with full backs, finely undercut at the footrest. The handrails at the side backrests have upholstered armrests. The upholstery of both seats is analogous, quilted in navy blue cloth. The front snowguard is not very high, slightly curved and wider at the top with spectacularly rounded corners. One of the major decorations of the sleigh is the striking, tall, black lacquered funnel fork at the snowguard, the ends of which are spirally wound. Bodywork with wooden, wrought-iron skids are equipped with posmyks (wooden rods between the skids and the evener), by which the whippletrees are suspended. Aldona Cholewianka-Kruszyńska