Jan III Sobieski, Gdańsk

Before you is an equestrian monument to King John III Sobieski, the Polish monarch. It began life in Lviv, whose city government funded it and unveiled it in eighteen ninety-eight. Notice the king’s sweeping costume and the horse’s dramatic leap: Sobieski is shown clearing a fallen cannon and wrecked battlefield equipment.

Tadeusz Barącz designed the sculpture, and Artur Krupp’s Viennese company cast it in bronze. The pedestal came from a Lviv sculptor’s workshop and uses Ternopil sandstone. Its journey is as remarkable as its pose.

After Lviv came under Soviet control, a proposal would have transformed Sobieski into Bohdan Khmelnytsky. Polish authorities received the monument instead, and it spent sixteen years near Wilanów Palace before coming here. Gdańsk ceremonially unveiled it in June nineteen sixty-five.

The king now faces west, and the original dedication from Lviv was restored after nineteen eighty-nine. Rising beyond eight metres and weighing more than seven tonnes, this is among Gdańsk’s oldest monuments.