From: Meyer’s Universum, oder Abbildung und Beschreibung des Sehenswerthesten und Merkwürdigsten der Natur und Kunst auf der ganzen Erde. Sechzehnter Band, Hildburghausen und New-York, Druck und Verlag vom Bibliographischen Institut, 1854, before p. 69
Unknown engraver after a painting by Domenico Quaglio (1787–1837) from 1833, middle of the 19th century
Paper, steel engraving
Acquired in the period 1911–1916
Illustration printing; made in the steel engraving technique popular in the 19th century, giving great opportunities to valorize the tones of the drawing. Attached to an article by Carl Joseph Meyer Schloβ Marienburg in Preuβen on the history of the former residence of the Grand Master of the German Order, which was published in the sixteenth volume of the magazine “Meyers’s Universum” in 1854.
A composition based on the picturesque panorama of Malbork Castle from the south-west from 1833 by the Bavarian vedutist Domenico Quaglio (today in the collection of the Stiftung Preuβische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg; inv. No. GK I4181), popularized in 1834 by Julius Friedrich Tempeltey (1802–1870 ) in pencil lithography. However, the view of the stronghold in Malbork is not an exact copy of the original painting. Its author introduced a few minor changes to the composition. The differences concern both the time of day and the perspective of the frame and relayage. In the horizontal frame, in the foreground there is a calm mirror of the Nogat river with boats with sails. On the left bank, behind the outer row of unnaturally piled up and brightened residential buildings in half-timbered construction, surrounding the ruined Bridge Towers, there are brick blocks of the High and Middle Castle with the majestic and light in its structure Palace of the Grand Masters. In the longer perspective, the outer bailey with a series of farm buildings and the Buttermilk Tower closing the frame from the north and a low pontoon bridge over the river are shown in a nutshell.
(by Justyna Lijka)
