Poland
King Władysław IV Vasa (reigned 1632–48) assembled an important collection of Italian and Flemish Baroque paintings, but these promising developments were cut short by the destruction of the Swedish Wars in the middle of the 17th century. Under John III Sobieski (reigned 1674–96), a cultivated man, there was a considerable revival, and, although two of the painters active in Poland—Claude Callot and Michelangelo Palloni—were foreign-born and foreign-trained, native talent flowered with the work of Jerzy Eleuter Szymonowicz-Siemiginowski and Jan Tretko. In 1697 the crowns of Poland and Saxony were united under Augustus II, and he and his son Augustus III ruled over Poland until 1763. During this period, Polish painting formed part of the Saxon tradition, but during the reign of the last king of Poland, Stanisław II August Poniatowski (reigned 1764–95), Warsaw quickly became a centre of European importance. Although inclined to Neoclassicism in architecture, Stanisław’s taste in painting was more conservative. Accordingly it is the late Rococo portraits of Marcello Bacciarelli that are particularly important. A nephew and pupil of Canaletto, Bernardo Bellotto, settled in Warsaw in 1767 and executed for Stanisław the great series of 26 views of the city that were intended to hang in the Royal Castle.