View of Szczecin from Górny Wik

In vedutas of Szczecin from the first half of the 19th century, a tendency to admire local views and mundane landscapes became apparent. In this way, a sense of connection with the native land was emphasised. The meticulousness in depicting the city, characteristic of the Biedermeier style, resulted in many detailed views of the buildings of Szczecin and its suburban areas. One of such depictions is a lithograph created between 1836 and 1842, showing Szczecin from the south-west, from the sandy hill Górny Wik, i.e., an unfortified area, with wooden houses surrounded by gardens, in an arrangement resembling a quadrangle in rural homesteads in Pomerania. Its author was Ludwig Eduard Lütke (1801-1850), a well-known Biedermeier vedutist, born in Berlin and leading an active artistic life there as a painter (oil, watercolour), draughtsman and lithographer. He developed his artistic skills in the workshop of his father, Peter Ludwig Lütke (1759-1831), professor of landscape painting at the Royal Prussian Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. He undertook landscape and maritime themes, mainly of Saxony, Silesia and Pomerania, and created views of his native Berlin, Potsdam, Rügen, Harz, Rhine and Szczecin. His works gained popularity thanks to their reproduction with lithographs, printed at the Königliches Lithographisches Institut Zu Berlin. The artist exhibited his works several times at annual exhibitions organised by the Berlin Academy and in Szczecin in 1835-1841. The lithograph with a panorama of Szczecin appeared in two versions, one of which was provided with a side genre motif (staffage), depicting washerwomen hanging out laundry, a resting couple and a two-masted ship on the Oder. The National Museum (Muzeum Narodowe) in Szczecin has a copy of the lithograph without the staffage in the collection.

Małgorzata Peszko