Countess Józefina Amalia Mniszech (1752–1798) was a Polish
noblewoman
Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below royalty. Nobility has often been an estate of the realm with many exclusive functions and characteristics. The characteri ...
,
State Lady, Dame of the
Order of Saint Catherine
The Imperial Order of Saint Catherine (russian: Императорский Орден Святой Екатерины) was an award of Imperial Russia. Instituted on 24 November 1714 by Peter the Great on the occasion of his marriage to Catherine ...
, amateur painter, and art collector.
Early life
By birth a member of the
House of Mniszech, she was born as the only child of
Court Marshal Jerzy August Mniszech and Countess
Maria Amelia Friederike von Brühl, and the granddaughter of
Heinrich von Brühl
Heinrich, count von Brühl ( pl, Henryk Brühl, 13 August 170028 October 1763), was a Polish-Saxon statesman at the court of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and a member of the powerful German von Brühl family. The incumbency of ...
.
On 1 December 1774 Józefina Amalia was married in
Dukla
Dukla is a town and an eponymous municipality in southeastern Poland, in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship. As of December 2021, the town has a population of 2,017. The total area of the commune is . Dukla belongs to Lesser Poland, and until the ...
to
Count
Count (feminine: countess) is a historical title of nobility in certain European countries, varying in relative status, generally of middling rank in the hierarchy of nobility. Pine, L. G. ''Titles: How the King Became His Majesty''. New York: ...
Stanisław Szczęsny Potocki
Count Stanisław Szczęsny Feliks Potocki (; 1751–1805), of the Piława coat of arms, known as Szczęsny PotockiE. Rostworowski, Potocki Stanisław Szczęsny (Feliks) herbu Pilawa, n:Polski Słownik Biograficzny, t. XXVIII, Wrocław–Warsza ...
, member of the
House of Potocki
The House of Potocki (; plural: Potoccy, male: Potocki, feminine: Potocka) was a prominent Polish noble family in the Kingdom of Poland and magnates of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Potocki family is one of the wealthiest and ...
on the behest of her parents. They had eleven children, only eight of whom reached adulthood. As a dowry, Mniszech received
Vyalikaya Byerastavitsa. The couple live in
Tulchyn
Tulchyn (, translit. ''Tul’chyn'', old name ''Nesterwar'' (from Hungarian ''Nester'' - Dniester and ''war'' -town), Latin Tulcinum, pl, Tulczyn, yi, טולטשין, ro, Tulcin) is a town in Vinnytsia Oblast (province) of western Ukraine, f ...
where she had eleven children, however the paternity of the younger children is in doubt as they didn't live together after 1787.
Jozefina Amalia was known in society for her beauty, cheer, ambition, and converstaion, which did not always follow ettiquite of the time. She took lovers both before and during the marriage. Jozef Klembowski who managed the Potocki residence could be the father of some of her children. Her later lovers include the colonel of the Targovitsky Regiment, Dzerzhansky, who is assumed to be the father of her youngest daughter, Idalia, and the Commander of the Court Police in Tullchun, Tadeusz Mosakovsky.
Countess Potoskaya enjoyed the favour of
Catherine the Great, who granted her the title of Lady of State in 1792, and in 1793, bestowed upon her the Order of Saint Catherine of the Grand Cross.
1791, Stanislav Potosky expressed his desire to legally marry Countess Sophia Witt, but Jozefina Amalia, who was backed by the Empress, refused to grant him a divorce. On 23 May 1792, Potocki entered into an arrangement with his wife, where he transferred his estates and the custody of their children to her, in return she pledged to pay him 50 thousand gallons per year. Following this, he left with Countess Witt and they lived in
Hamburg
(male), (female) en, Hamburger(s),
Hamburgian(s)
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for two and a half years.
Jozefina Amalia left the management of her property to the discrescion of the stweards and continued to live in
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, participating is society and refusing to send her husband a single penny.
In 1796 Pototsky returned to Russia and with difficulty managed to break the arrangement. Jozefina Amalia agreed to a divorce only after Catherine II had died. The episcopal court in
Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamianets-Podilskyi ( uk, Ка́м'яне́ць-Поді́льський, russian: Каменец-Подольский, Kamenets-Podolskiy, pl, Kamieniec Podolski, ro, Camenița, yi, קאַמענעץ־פּאָדאָלסק / קאַמעניץ, ...
announced the divorce in the beginning of 1798. However the same year, Jozefina Amalia unexpectedly died in her St. Petersburg house on the
Fontanka
The Fontanka (russian: Фонтанка), a left branch of the river Neva, flows through the whole of Central Saint Petersburg, Russia – from the Summer Garden to . It is long, with a width up to , and a depth up to . The Moyka River for ...
at the age of 46, leaving behind many children "products of years and lesiure" as she herself said.
[F. G. Golovkin. Court and reign of Paul I. - M .: Sphinx, 1912. - P. 395.]
References
* Polski Słownik Biograficzny t. 27 s. 740 (''Józefina Amelia Potocka'')
1752 births
1798 deaths
Jozefina Amelia
Potocki family
18th-century Polish–Lithuanian painters
{{Poland-noble-stub