The Sobieskis and the Stuarts at Wilanów Palace: last months to see the exhibition on a family that almost won back three crowns

Wilanów Palace has had an exhibition in its north wing for a year that is easy to miss if you are not specifically looking for information beyond the regular visiting route. "The Sobieskis and the Stuarts, the Splendour and Spectre of the Crown" is the first exhibition in Poland devoted to the ties between two royal families, the Polish Sobieskis and the exiled British Stuarts. Its starting point is a marriage arranged in 1719. Jan III Sobieski's youngest granddaughter, eighteen year old Maria Klementyna, married thirty one year old James Stuart, a pretender to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland known as James III. The couple met only on their wedding day, in Italy, where James had fled after losing any real chance of regaining the crown.

The exhibition fills the entire wing and is included in the regular palace ticket, nothing extra to buy. On display are portraits of Maria Klementyna and James by Antonio David, portraits of their sons Charles Edward and Henry Benedict, a watch that belonged to Maria Klementyna and a prayer book of Queen Mary Stuart. There is also a 1720 letter from Prince Konstanty Sobieski and engravings showing the Roman palaces where the family lived in exile. Some of the objects come from private collections and have never been shown to the public before.

Objects that left Ukraine for the first time

The least obvious part of the exhibition is a collaboration with institutions in Lviv, the Boris Voznytsky Lviv National Art Gallery and the Lviv Historical Museum. This is the first time objects related to the Sobieskis from Ukrainian collections have been shown in Poland. There are also objects from the Royal Castle in Warsaw, the National Library and the National Museum in Warsaw. Academic consultation was provided by professor Edward Corp and Piotr Piniński, and the curators are Marta Gołąbek, Alicja Łoboda and Agnieszka Pawlak, together with curator Michał Witkowski.

The exhibition opened in October 2025. It was originally announced for a few months, but the museum has extended it, and the closing date currently listed by the museum is 13 December 2026. For Wilanów residents who have the palace right around the corner, that is a good reason to finally go inside rather than just walk the park. The palace is open every day except Tuesdays, from 10am to 4pm, and the park is free until the same hour regardless of the exhibition. Because of renovation work, the upper floor is temporarily inaccessible to visitors with reduced mobility, worth checking on wilanow-palac.pl before a visit.