Zamoyska Teresa, née Potocka

Zamoyska Teresa, née Potocka, primo voto Gnińska (died after August 4, 1713, in Starzyska), wife of the steward of Zamość and Starost of Płoskirów

Parents: Teresa nee Cetner (d. 1667)  and Jan Potocki (d. 1665)

Siblings: Stefan Aleksander Potocki (d. 1726/1727)

Marriage:

• 1st husband: from 20 VI 1685 r. Jan Krzysztof Gniński (d.1703)
• 2nd husband: from I 1704 r. Tomasz Józef Zamoyski (d. 1725),

Children: childless

 

After the death of her parents, Teresa Potocka was probably raised at the court of the relatives of the Potocki family and then at the court of Queen Maria Kazimiera Sobieska. That is most likely where she met Anna Franciszka Zamoyska, née Gnińska (1653-1704), wife of the Grand Treasurer of the Crown, whose brother Jan Krzysztof Gniński (died 1703), voivode of Bracław, she married in June 1685. The spouses stayed mainly in Pomerania, at Gniński’s estates, and remained childless. Shortly after Gniński’s death, still during the period of mourning, Anna Franciszka Zamoyska persuaded Teresa to marry Zamoyska’s much younger son – Tomasz Józef, the starost of Płoskirów (modern Khmelnytskyi), the future 5th steward (pol. ordynat) of the Zamość  fideicommissum. The increasingly ailing wife of the Treasurer of the Crown feared that after her death the Gniński family estates would slip out of the hands of the Zamoyski family and her young sons would squander the fideicommissum property.

The Court:

Teresa Zamoyska, née Gniński lived with her second husband in Zamość, but she spent more time in nearby Starzyska, where she held her own court. Relations with her much younger husband did not go well and Tomasz Józef avoided his wife. Having no children of her own, she took care of her nieces, especially the older one, her name sake, Teofila Teresa Potocka. She financed her upkeep in the monastery of the Benedictine Nuns of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in Warsaw and later in Lviv. She did not participate in public affairs, leading a lavish life in Zamość and Starzyska.

See also:

 

• Popiołek Bożena, Kicińska Urszula, Panie Zamoyskie: Anna Franciszka z Gnińskich Zamoyska, Teresa z Potockich i Urszula z Kalińskich – okruchy biografii w świetle korespondencji i aktów ostatniej woli, „Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej”, R. 65: 2017, 1, s. 19-38. LINK
• Popiołek Bożena, Szlachecki dwór kobiecy w świetle raptularzy domowych i regestrów majątkowych z początku XVIII wieku na przykładzie dworu Teresy z Potockich Zamoyskiej, „Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej” 69 (4), 2021, s. 477-496. LINK