MONUMENTS OF NAPOLEON INTENDED FOR KALISZ AND WARSAW DESIGNED BY C.P. AIGNER

The Duchy of Warsaw marked a period full of vivid and dynamic political events, but it can hardly be included among the most interesting in the history of Polish art. The first specific designs (confirmed by source documents) were plans for erecting a monument to Napoleon emperor, together with a specially laid square in the provincial town of Kalisz, near which the II Division of the Army was stationed. Its leader was General Józef Zajaczek, famous for his obsequiousness towards the French military authorities. Desiring to reinforce his position vis-a-vis the Minister of War, Prince Józef Poniatowski, in 1808, the concept of erecting such a monument was accepted by Marshal Davout (cf. Boulogne-sur-Mer monument). Chrystian Piotr Aigner prepared visualisations, based on Trajan's column in Rome, but construction was halted in its early stages by the outbreak of war in 1809. A national project was brought up in 1812 as a result of the commencement of the Moscow Campaign, whereby a Napoleoon Monument was to go up in the 'Saxon Courtyard' in Warsaw (recorded in a watercolour, attributed to Zygmunt Vogel). Once Napoleon's fall became a foregone conclusion, some of the same people who had so adulated the emperor of the French began collecting funds to erect a monument in adoration of the Russian tsar, Alexander I. However, he refused to grant permission for the erecting of a monument with his likeness, as a result of which a Roman Catholic church bearing his name was built on Warsaw's Three Crosses Square. The architect was ... C.P. Aigner.