The Hill of Three Crosses in Vilnius

Periodical TYGODNIK ILLUSTROWANY (Warsaw).

Between 1867 and 1878, the Polish engraver Józef Sosiński made woodcuts for the Warsaw weekly Tygodnik Illustrowany, in which he presented documentary pictures of locations in Poland and Lithuania. He made the woodcut The Hill of Three Crosses and part of Bekešas Hill in Vilnius as an illustration to the series of articles ‘Panorama okolic Wilna’ (Views of the Environs of Vilnius) by the Polish writer Edward Chłopicki, which was published in issue 216 on 17 February 1872. The woodcut shows a bend in the River Vilnia, with the Hill of Three Crosses in the centre and Bekešas Hill slightly lower. The Transylvanian nobleman Gáspár Békés was a friend of Stephen Báthory, the King of Poland and Lithuania. When Békés died in Grodno in 1580, his body was brought to Vilnius, but the Catholic Church refused to bury him because he was of the Arian faith. The king then had Békés buried on a hill by the Vilnia, and erected an octagonal monument. But the slope was sandy and subject to erosion by the river, and in 1841 the walls of the monument fell down. Many engravings for Warsaw magazines were made from photographs, and this view was based on an 1866 picture by the Vilnius photographer Vilhelm Zakharchik, called The Hill of Three Crosses.

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: “Shaping the Landscape”, 30 June – 20 August 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Ona Lozuraitytė)

Periodical TYGODNIK ILLUSTROWANY (Warsaw).

Between 1867 and 1878, the Polish engraver Józef Sosiński made woodcuts for the Warsaw weekly Tygodnik Illustrowany, in which he presented documentary pictures of locations in Poland and Lithuania. He made the woodcut The Hill of Three Crosses and part of Bekešas Hill in Vilnius as an illustration to the series of articles ‘Panorama okolic Wilna’ (Views of the Environs of Vilnius) by the Polish writer Edward Chłopicki, which was published in issue 216 on 17 February 1872. The woodcut shows a bend in the River Vilnia, with the Hill of Three Crosses in the centre and Bekešas Hill slightly lower. The Transylvanian nobleman Gáspár Békés was a friend of Stephen Báthory, the King of Poland and Lithuania. When Békés died in Grodno in 1580, his body was brought to Vilnius, but the Catholic Church refused to bury him because he was of the Arian faith. The king then had Békés buried on a hill by the Vilnia, and erected an octagonal monument. But the slope was sandy and subject to erosion by the river, and in 1841 the walls of the monument fell down. Many engravings for Warsaw magazines were made from photographs, and this view was based on an 1866 picture by the Vilnius photographer Vilhelm Zakharchik, called The Hill of Three Crosses.

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: “Shaping the Landscape”, 30 June – 20 August 2017, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius (curator Ona Lozuraitytė)