HENRI L’ANGE
Henryk Lubomirski was the son of a distant relative of Princess Izabella Lubomirska's husband, Kiev castellan Joseph and his wife Ludwika of Sosnowska.
The boy was born on September 15, 1777 in the Volyn region of Rivne.
Izabella Lubomirska was enchanted by the boy's extraordinary beauty, and wanted to take him as her heir and make him her heir. Initially, however, she met with his mother's refusal.
"And so it happened that when she was in Rivne at the home of Prince Józef Lubomirski[...] during the ball Princess Józefowa Lubomirska went out to the lounge and sitting on the sofa fed her beautiful son and on the same sofa later put him to sleep by himself while she returned to dancing in the ballroom. Then, having forgotten about him, she went to bed. The next morning Duchess Marshaless was leaving Rivne and having noticed the wonderful child alone on the couch she could not hold back, she grabbed the child, put him in a large furry spoke and left with him for Łańcut, and from the road she sent a relay to his parents to make them worry and agree to give her their son, whom she would watch over like a mother. This was done, and Prince Henry with his foster mother grew up and was her joy*."
Henryk Lubomirski lived in residences in Łańcut and Vienna. Lubomirska took care of his upbringing and careful education. She surrounded him with the best teachers. The young man took harp lessons and learned dance from Paris opera dancer Gaetan Vestris. He gave concerts with his adoptive mother on the clavichord. Everyone admired the extraordinary beauty of the little prince.
On July 15, 1785, Lubomirska, along with her foster son and her court and attendants, set out for Italy. She arrived in Rome that same year as early as November. Probably in the spring of 1786 she commissioned Antoni Canova to sculpt a statue of Henry.
Initially, the artist refused to accept the commission, explaining that he had not done portraits before. Eventually Canova agreed to make the sculpture. He first modeled the head out of clay, while the model of the cupid figure was made in April 1786. In June of that year he began work on a life-size model, and in October work began forging the statue in marble.
The sculpture depicts a naked young man with a bow in hand, leaning against the trunk of a tree, to which a quiver with arrows is tied. The model's head, modeled from nature, was placed by the artist on the body of a boy several years older than Henry, showing him not as a child, but as a young man.
Henry remained connected to his adoptive mother until her death. He also maintained a close relationship with his biological mother and siblings.
Princess Lubomirska generously endowed her son. In 1799 she bought the town of Przeworsk for him, bequeathed to him the palace in Vienna at the Mölker Bastei and part of the collection from Łańcut. The artistic passions instilled made Henryk Lubomirska an outstanding collector and patron of works of art.
We used B.Trojnar Prince Henry Lubomirski as Amor Canova's Sculpture in the Castle in Lancut, Catalogue 2008.
*BiA MZŁ manuscript 51; Maria née Lubomirska Tyszkiewiczowa Wypisy i notatki, pp.11-15
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