Wilanów Palace as seen from the garden

The garden view of Wilanów Palace, painted by Bellotto in 1776 as a companion to his entrance facade view, shows the rear of the palace opening onto its formal Baroque garden — a design influenced by French parterre principles and Italian garden architecture. Wilanów's gardens were among the finest in Poland, designed and replanted in successive phases from the late seventeenth century onward. The garden facade of the palace is architecturally distinct from the entrance, featuring garden pavilions, sculptures, and terracing that gave the rear a different character from the ceremonial front. Bellotto's decision to paint both faces of the palace was part of his systematic architectural documentation, creating a complete record of the building that has proved invaluable given subsequent damage and rebuilding. This view was especially prized because it recorded the garden layout and its sculptural programme in a period before nineteenth-century romantic redesign altered the formal geometry. The Royal Castle in Warsaw, which holds both Wilanów views, treats them as an integral document of Polish Baroque culture at its late flowering.

Bellotto adopts a higher viewpoint than his entrance view, allowing the garden parterres to spread in the middle ground before the palace facade rises behind. The formal garden geometry — clipped hedges, gravel walks, fountain basins — is rendered with topographic clarity, its patterns visible from the elevated perspective.