The Vingis area near Vilnius

Periodical TYGODNIK ILLUSTROWANY (Warsaw).

Woodcut after Alfred Rurawski.

The engraver Józef Sosiński (d. 1881) based this woodcut on a drawing by Alfred Rurawski (1841–1873) for the Warsaw magazine Tygodnik Illustrowany (no. 215, 1872). The picture is an illustration for the series of articles ‘Panorama okolic Wilna’ (Views of the Environs of Vilnius) by the Polish writer Edward Chłopicki. The woodcut shows the banks of the Neris covered by forests, and a picturesque bend in the river, with the hill of Vingis Park on the left, and the Žvėrynas area on the right. The roof of the governor general’s summer house can be seen behind the trees on the Žvėrynas side, and a magnificent view of the Neris valley opens out. But St Catherine’s Chapel, which was built in 1871, is not there, and so Rurawski must have based the picture on an earlier photograph. In the interwar period, the governor general’s summer house was turned into a children’s home, and in the Soviet period it was a hospital for tuberculosis patients, and later a psychiatric hospital. In the distance, by the river, are the shapes of the mills of Žvėrynas.

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).

Woodcut after Alfred Rurawski.

The engraver Józef Sosiński (d. 1881) based this woodcut on a drawing by Alfred Rurawski (1841–1873) for the Warsaw magazine Tygodnik Illustrowany (no. 215, 1872). The picture is an illustration for the series of articles ‘Panorama okolic Wilna’ (Views of the Environs of Vilnius) by the Polish writer Edward Chłopicki. The woodcut shows the banks of the Neris covered by forests, and a picturesque bend in the river, with the hill of Vingis Park on the left, and the Žvėrynas area on the right. The roof of the governor general’s summer house can be seen behind the trees on the Žvėrynas side, and a magnificent view of the Neris valley opens out. But St Catherine’s Chapel, which was built in 1871, is not there, and so Rurawski must have based the picture on an earlier photograph. In the interwar period, the governor general’s summer house was turned into a children’s home, and in the Soviet period it was a hospital for tuberculosis patients, and later a psychiatric hospital. In the distance, by the river, are the shapes of the mills of Žvėrynas.

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)