Standing just before the entrance to the castle is the Bar Column, designed by Zürich University Professor Julian Stadler. It had been erected by Count Plater, largely at his own expense, in 1868 (two years before the museum's opening) on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bar Confederation, to commemorate Poland's then-century-long struggle for independence. The column had originally been placed at the shore of Lake Zürich but Russian protests had led to its move up to the castle, where it would not be visible from the town. The column is topped by an eagle, while the base bears, among other things, the Latin inscription, "Magna res libertas" ("A great thing is liberty") and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth coat-of-arms featuring the Polish Eagle and the Lithuanian "Vytis" (in Polish, "Pogoń").