Saunders joined the Dedicated Lithuanian ("Gorliwy Litwin"), Masonic lodge in Vilnius, whose secretary and friend of Saunders was the literary critic and Polish translator of John Milton, Leon Borowski (krytyk literacki) [pl].

[9] In a publication celebrating 200 years of art history begun at Wilno University, Jerzy Malinowski has characterised Saunders' academic role as follows: In 1818 he took a sabbatical for health reasons and travelled to Italy with his assistant, Antoni Pilecki.

He stayed in Florence and Pisa as guest of the exiled Polish statesman, Michał Kleofas Ogiński.

While in Tuscany, he produced prints after Antonio Canova, and works by Bertel Thorwaldsen and Vittorio Alfieri.

In 1821 he retired from his university position, where he was succeeded by Jan Rustem, and from 1822 lived for two years in Odesa.

He himself died many years later in the winter of 1853–4 according to an inscription found on a gravestone in the former Basilian cemetery in Kremenets.

[13] He contributed 48 of the 75 engravings of imperial portraits after Lampi and Gérard in the two volume edition of La Galerie de l'Hermitage.

[14] In 1815 Saunders published a paper on the life and work of Polish baroque painter, Szymon Czechowicz.