Lithograph after Albert Wojciech Żamett, Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, ‘Album of Vilnius’, series II, fascicle I, No. 8.
It was no accident that a lithograph portraying Ribiškės Hill behind the Rasų suburb found its way into the ‘Album of Vilnius’. Adam Honory Kirkor wrote about the place in 1859: ‘The green ravine finally ends with a bridge, which crosses a damp and boggy meadow, and emerges into a wide meadow surrounded by trees. On its right, wooden steps lead up the hill, where there is a two-storey wooden house. This is the famous Ribiškės, a place which has tempted residents of the city for many years. Here, in the open air, or in the hall which stretches the whole length of the house, summer parties, luxurious picnics for the nobility, grand dinners, and students’ May Balls take place. On the eve of the Feast of Corpus Christi, the town guilds come here with their banners to practise a rather complicated art of waving them, so that during the celebrations they perform in the most gallant way before every altar’ (Adomas Honoris Kirkoras, Pasivaikščiojimai po Vilnių ir jo apylinkes, Vilnius: Vaga, 1991, p. 129).
Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album
VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA II (2015). Compiler and author Laima Laučkaitė
