page_title: Palace on the Isle
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Palace on the Isle / History
caption_attribution_description: Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski bathing pavilion in Warsaw.
context_page_description: The Palace on the Isle, also known as Baths Palace, is a classicist palace in Warsaw's Royal Baths Park, the city's largest park, occupying over 76 hectares of the city center.
  From 1674 the property and the nearby Ujazdów Castle belonged to Count Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, who commissioned a Baroque bath house called "Łazienka", similarly to a number of other European historic sites, including England's city of Bath. The building, erected on a square plan, was richly decorated with stuccos, statues, and paintings; some of the original decorations and architectural details survive.
  In 1766 King Stanisław II Augustus purchased the estate and converted the bathing pavilion into a classicist summer residence, with an English garden.
  During the final stages of World War II, the retreating Germans devastated the interior of the Palace and drilled holes in the structure in preparation for destruction. However, the plan was never carried out.
context_section_description: The building began as a bathhouse for Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, owner of adjacent Ujazdów Castle. After 1678 the Lubomirski palace complex in Ujazdów, was enriched with four park pavilions: Arcadia, Hermitage, Frascati and the largest of them the Bathhouse. The marble building was constructed before 1683 according to design by Tylman Gamerski. Finished in 1689, it was intended to serve as a bathhouse, habitable pavilion and a garden grotto. Interiors of the newly built structure were embellished with profuse stucco decorations, also designed by Gamerski. Among the decorations were water deities (like Nereus), surrounding the main decorational feature of the pavilion - the fountain. Other chambers had richly decorated plafonds and supraportes, while the walls were covered with Delft tiles. The façades and interiors were decorated with sculptures, reliefs, Latin inscriptions (Musa Dryas, Nymphaeque boves et Pastor Apollo / Hic maneant, fugiat diva Minerva domus - Muse, dryad and nymphs, bullocks and Apollo the shepherd let stay here, the divine Minerva let disdain this house on the portal of the southern façade) and Lubomirski coat of arms - Szreniawa.
  King Stanisław II Augustus decided to convert it into private quarters, and it was remodeled by Domenico Merlini between 1764 and 1795. During World War II, the Germans drilled holes into the walls for explosives but never got around to blowing up the palace. Afterwards the palace served as a barracks.
caption: Lubomirski's bathing pavilion
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