Šnipiškės

Chromolithograph after Jan Chrucki, Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, ‘Album of Vilnius’, series II, fascicle I, No. 10.

Wilczyński included in the ‘Album of Vilnius’ the same pictures, but in different sizes and techniques (lithographs, steel and copper engravings). One example is the view of Šnipiškės painted by Jan Chrucki (1810–1885), which was lithographed by the French artists Bichebois and Adam, and a steel engraving was made by the English graphic artist Edward Francis Finden (1791–1857). A large colour lithograph, a simple steel engraving and a small picture kept in a prayer-book are adapted to the needs of people from diff erent social strata and of varying means. The Church of St Raphael in Šnipiškės was closed down by the Imperial Russian authorities as a result of the 1831 uprising, and it was already closed by the time when the prints were being made. There used to be a statue of St John Nepomucen on a hill near the church, but its condition deteriorated, and after the plague of 1710 a shrine was erected with a sculpture of Christ carrying the cross. After 1847, the sculpture was regarded as miracle-working, and crowds of people would come to pray before it. Therefore, Wilczyński included a lithograph portraying the shrine and the figure of Christ the Redeemer in a series of small religious pictures. The shrine was pulled down in the 1960s, when the street was being widened.

Text author Laima Laučkaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA II (2015). 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)

Chromolithograph after Jan Chrucki, Jan Kazimierz Wilczyński, ‘Album of Vilnius’, series II, fascicle I, No. 10.

Wilczyński included in the ‘Album of Vilnius’ the same pictures, but in different sizes and techniques (lithographs, steel and copper engravings). One example is the view of Šnipiškės painted by Jan Chrucki (1810–1885), which was lithographed by the French artists Bichebois and Adam, and a steel engraving was made by the English graphic artist Edward Francis Finden (1791–1857). A large colour lithograph, a simple steel engraving and a small picture kept in a prayer-book are adapted to the needs of people from diff erent social strata and of varying means. The Church of St Raphael in Šnipiškės was closed down by the Imperial Russian authorities as a result of the 1831 uprising, and it was already closed by the time when the prints were being made. There used to be a statue of St John Nepomucen on a hill near the church, but its condition deteriorated, and after the plague of 1710 a shrine was erected with a sculpture of Christ carrying the cross. After 1847, the sculpture was regarded as miracle-working, and crowds of people would come to pray before it. Therefore, Wilczyński included a lithograph portraying the shrine and the figure of Christ the Redeemer in a series of small religious pictures. The shrine was pulled down in the 1960s, when the street was being widened.

Text author Laima Laučkaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album VILNIUS. TOPOPHILIA II (2015). 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)