Projekty pieczęci Towarzystwa Opieki nad Zabytkami Przeszłości

Among the partly preserved records o f the Society for Protection o f Historical Monuments there are to be found five designs of an Inventory Seal o f the art collection at the Royal Castle in Warsaw. The designs, dating from 1916, are the work of W. Żyliński, a rather unknown architect. The author of the report does not plunge into a detailed description o f the said projects, his attention being focussed on their symbolic meaning which reflected the then political situation o f the Polish nation, its mood and striving for the recovery o f independence. In four designs the date 1915 had been inserted. It was meant to memorize the moment of the Society — a Polish institution set up in the Russian sector o f parti tioned Poland, 1906, upon the initiative of the Society'— having taken over the care o f the Royal Castle in Warsaw after 85 years o f the country’s servitude. The key-note of two designs is the crown o f King Sigismund III, bearing the inscription: „The Royal Castle” to remind it was during his reign that the Warsaw Castle became the residence o f the King o f Poland. In one of the projects of the seal there is an image o f a white eagle — referring to that being Poland’s emblem in the times of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, in another one, a bi-partite shield with the white eagle of the Jagiellonian dynasty, and the arms of Lithuania — to remind the idea of the Commonwealth o f Two Nations which survived throughout the period o f partitions. The only design of the Society’s seal put into effect represents a stylized fourleaf clover inscribed into a circle and with the Society’s initials in its arms and centre. It was that seal that was used for stamping archival records o f the Society for Protection of Historical Monuments.