Antakalnis from the Church of St Peter in Vilnius

Periodical TYGODNIK ILLUSTROWANY (Warsaw).

Alfred Rurawski (1841–1873), a Warsaw artist, made an engraving of the view of Antakalnis from the Church of St Peter and St Paul, as an illustration for the magazine Tygodnik Illustrowany (no. 216, 1872). The name of this suburb means ‘on the hills’, and the view shows how hilly and uneven the area is. The picturesque hills of Antakalnis are not yet filled with buildings. In the foreground, the Sapieginė forest stretches to the right of the pinewood, and to the left is the park of the Sapiega mansion. According to a popular 19th-century legend, the mansion was built on the ruins of a pantheon of pagan gods. The Church of the Lord Jesus can be seen in the distance, built on the Sapiegas’ land by the Trinitarian Order in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Worshippers were drawn to the church by a miracle-working sculpture of Jesus of Nazareth, called Ecce homo, which was brought from Rome in 1700. The dome and the Baroque towers of the façade stand out in the centre of the picture. But by the time the woodcut was made, after the 1863 uprising, the church had already been turned into the Orthodox Church of St Michael the Archangel. The buildings of the Sapiega mansion, built in the 17th century and turned into a military hospital in the 19th century, can be seen behind the trees to the left of the church.

Text author Laima Laučkaitė.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA I (2014). Compiler and author Laima Laučkaitė, RES PUBLICA (2018). Compiler and author Rūta Janonienė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė)

Periodical TYGODNIK ILLUSTROWANY (Warsaw).

Alfred Rurawski (1841–1873), a Warsaw artist, made an engraving of the view of Antakalnis from the Church of St Peter and St Paul, as an illustration for the magazine Tygodnik Illustrowany (no. 216, 1872). The name of this suburb means ‘on the hills’, and the view shows how hilly and uneven the area is. The picturesque hills of Antakalnis are not yet filled with buildings. In the foreground, the Sapieginė forest stretches to the right of the pinewood, and to the left is the park of the Sapiega mansion. According to a popular 19th-century legend, the mansion was built on the ruins of a pantheon of pagan gods. The Church of the Lord Jesus can be seen in the distance, built on the Sapiegas’ land by the Trinitarian Order in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Worshippers were drawn to the church by a miracle-working sculpture of Jesus of Nazareth, called Ecce homo, which was brought from Rome in 1700. The dome and the Baroque towers of the façade stand out in the centre of the picture. But by the time the woodcut was made, after the 1863 uprising, the church had already been turned into the Orthodox Church of St Michael the Archangel. The buildings of the Sapiega mansion, built in the 17th century and turned into a military hospital in the 19th century, can be seen behind the trees to the left of the church.

Text author Laima Laučkaitė.

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA I (2014). Compiler and author Laima Laučkaitė, RES PUBLICA (2018). Compiler and author Rūta Janonienė
Expositions: “Vilnius. Topophilia. Views of Vilnius from the collection of the law firm Ellex Valiunas”, 5 October – 26 November 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Laima Laučkaitė)