Exhibitions

Exhibition description

The exhibition commemorates the march of King Jan III Sobieski and his troops through Tarnowskie Góry on their way to the Siege of Vienna. The monarch stopped in the city, which at that time belonged to the Czech Crown, between August 20 and 22, 1683. In Tarnowskie Góry, he bid farewell to Queen Maria Kazimiera and his younger children, and continued the expedition with his eldest son, Jakub. This historical episode is referenced by the Sobiesciana collection in Tarnowskie Góry – artifacts related to the king and his era – the majority of which can be seen at the permanent exhibition “Viva Jan III Sobieski.“ The collection was initiated in the 1960s by Janusz Modrzyński, the long-time director of the Museum in Tarnowskie Góry.

Particularly noteworthy among the exhibits are portraits of Jan III Sobieski, including 17th-century depictions of the monarch – both paintings and graphic works. These include, among others, a copperplate engraving by Pieter Stevens from the second half of the 17th century, and a work by the French engraver Simon Troyes Tomassin from 1696, showing the king’s bust in a Roman-style armor. Among the paintings, an interesting highlight is a set of 19th-century portrait miniatures, as well as a canvas depicting the king’s triumphal entry into Vienna after defeating the Turks – a work by Zygmunt Grimer, painted in 1840 in Tarnowskie Góry.

The extensive collection of medals and plaques includes, among others, medals minted shortly after the 1683 victory: a piece by Jan Kittel featuring the image of the sun overcoming the crescent moon, and a Viennese medal showing the city’s panorama and a scene of the battle. The exhibition also features commemorative medals marking key anniversaries of the Vienna victory: the 200th (1883), 250th (1933), and 300th (1983) anniversaries, as well as souvenirs related to Sobieski’s descendants – such as a 1719 medal commemorating the wedding of Klementyna Sobieska, the king’s granddaughter, to James Stuart, the pretender to the English throne, and a medallion from 1862 marking the discovery of the king’s descendants’ remains and their memorialization with a monument in the church in Żółkiew.

Among the sculptures, notable items include a bust of the king cast from the Łopieński studio in Warsaw, and most significantly, a bronze model of an equestrian monument of the king, featuring figures of hussars at its base, created by Zygmunt Langman and produced during the interwar period by the Mikołów Metallurgical Plant.

A valuable part of the exhibition is a set of military artifacts from the Sobieski era. These include hussar armor, chain mail with a coif, Polish and Eastern sabers, a yatagan, and a janissary rifle. The exhibition also features elements of a Polish noble attire – two kontusz sashes, a decorative button (guz), and a szkofia (traditional cap).

It is worth emphasizing that the memory of Jan III Sobieski’s visit is still very much alive in Tarnowskie Góry – the king appears annually as one of the key figures in the Gwarki Parade, held during the city’s three-day festival in early September. He is also the patron of one of the main streets in the city center. However, the most enduring testament to this memory the Sobiesciana collection in Tarnowskie Góry – one of the largest of its kind in Poland outside of Warsaw and Kraków. What makes it especially unique is that it is associated with a place where Sobieski was neither a ruler nor a landowner – merely a guest for a brief time.