The Bathroom
This room was part of the former pavilion of Lubomirski. It was a bathroom proper with two marble baths embedded in the floor. The water was supplied to them through a wooden pipe hidden under the floor. The room is characterized by a very rich, baroque stucco decoration alluding to the motives of love, water, and bath. It comprises bas-reliefs depicting figures from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These are: Pan and Syrinx, Danaides pouring water into the bottomless barrel, singer Arion Fleeing on a Dolphin, Andromeda Chained to a Rock, as well as Diana and Actaeon. The empty field contained a currently unknown bas-relief, replaced with a tile heater in the times of Stanisław August. Models for the depictions enumerated above were taken from the Tableaux du Temple des Muses album by Michel de Marolles, which can lead to the conclusion that the Bathroom was seen by the contemporaries as a temple of Muses. According to the Mythology, it was precisely them who would dance around the Hippocrene spring – the source of poets’ inspiration. The bas-reliefs were complemented with three round medallions depicting Cupid – the idol of love – modelled on illustrations from the book by Otto Venius, Amorum Emblemata. Walls of the Bathing Room – just like in the Bacchus Room – have been lined with ceramic tiles, which were popular at the time, with depictions of genre scenes. Here, we can also admire a decoration made of little stones and the omnipresent shells, which allude to a natural water scenery. The decoration may suggest that the place was not intended solely for hygienic purposes, but also for intimate encounters of two lovers.