Prince Józef Poniatowski Monument (Pomnik księcia Józefa Poniatowskiego)

The figure of Prince Poniatowski, war minister and Duchy of Warsaw military commander, as well as Marshall of France, is modelled after the statue of Caesar Marc Aurelius of the Roman Capitol. Prince Józef was raised as an aristocrat in Vienna and in Prague but, being a true Polish patriot, chose Poland as his country.
The statue, sculpted by Bartel Thorvaldsen, stands in front of the Presidential Palace (Pałac Prezydencki). The search for a permanent site was long. Under special orders by a Tsar who forbade its display, the statue was shipped to the forts at Modlin, and later to the Belarussian residence of Ivan Paszkiewicz – the Tsar’s trusted general. The statue was returned to Poland in 1922. It was placed on the grounds of the Royal Castle (Zamek Królewski), moved in 1923 to the Saski Palace (Pałac Saski) grounds (presently Plac Piłsudskiego). The statue was demolished by the Nazis during World War II. A new cast, poured based on a copy displayed in the Copenhagen Museum, was presented to Poland in the early 1950s by the King of Denmark.