Above the entrance to the tower, in an ornate arched niche, a bust still stands today — but without its head. It was cut off exactly at the neck, leaving only the cloaked shoulders on a pedestal.
This bust depicted King Jan III Sobieski, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania (1674–1696), famous for the 1683 Battle of Vienna, where he defeated the Ottoman army besieging the city. Similar busts of historical figures decorated other parts of the estate too — a bust of Tadeusz Kościuszko once stood on a column in the park. No surviving photograph shows this Sobieski bust with its head still attached — it was already gone before any photograph capturing this part of the palace was taken.
The decapitation of statues and busts during wars and unrest is a widespread phenomenon spanning centuries, seen from ancient Egyptian sculpture to the destruction of Soviet-era heritage. Because a head symbolises a person's identity, destroying it is often a symbolic way of erasing what the sculpture stood for — though sometimes it is simply incidental war damage, since projecting, more delicate details are the most vulnerable.
The animation restores the missing head — showing how the bust might have looked with Jan Sobieski's face and helmet, before it was ever cut off.