DOI issue:
Nr. 3-4
DOI article:Komunikaty
DOI article:Heuer, Christopher P.: Three "Danzig" drawings: notes on the limits of influence
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.35031#0326
318
CHRJSTOPHER P. HEUER
*
'Ir**
* A
/ \
5. Copy o/ter/oho 7 o/tAg Ae Architectura,
7577 o/T/ans* Detfe/ttan Je Dzes'
engineering devices. The coHection appears to have been compiled by the Wurttemburg
architect, Heinrich Schickhardt the Elder, and contains numerous watercolours of sluice
and lock designs. Schickhardt, architect and engineer in Alsace, and designer of the ideał
town of Freudenstadt, was an ardent bibliophile. When he died, un 1635, he possessed a
library of morę than 580 titles on fortification, perspective and architecture. ^ Several of
Vredeman de Vries' books were among these, including AcAJgcEt/w, from which this
watercolour image was in all likelihood copied.
The drawings in the Polish Academy sit alongside one of the largest collections of early
Vredeman prints in Northern Europę, many of which belonged initially to local citizens.
One of the first German versions of Vredeman's PerspecJTe, now in the Library, for
example, bears the ThArA of Nicolas van Bodek, burgomaster of Danzig before 1676,
and an earlier compilation of Vredeman's engravings still exists in a 17th-century binding
of calfskin, stamped with the coat of arms of Egbert van Kampen, a wealthy Danzig trader
who died in 1636 (ill. 6). The Danzig-born astronomer Johannes Hevelius, son of a
wealthy family of brewers, even annotated his own copy of Domenico Lampsonius' book
of portraits (1618) with some comments of his own about Vredeman de Vries. Hevelius,
who may have drawn inspiration from Vredeman's prints for his own astronomical
projects - such as the illustration of a reflexive sundial published in 1635 - wrote in his
pen-and-ink annotation to Vredeman's portrait that the artist had spent time in Danzig.
Hevelius even referred to the / oeJ wali painting by Vredeman of O/p/teMy
housed formerly in the A7pMS'Ap/'(Pol.:
^ Roman JANSSEN, AemncA w? Syiege/ [in:] JVgMe ZM
5c7mł/?nr<77, ed. R. Kjretzschmar, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 7-51.
^ BG PAN, sig. Na 1390,4. !n generai on Heveiius, see: Mary G. WINKLER, Albert van HELDEN, 'Johannes Hevelius
and the visuai language of astronomy', [in:] AM/na/rAA, m?<7
y7Joyoy/?grs' ń? ear/y wo&rn Enroyg, ed. J.V. Field, Cambridge 1993, pp. 97-116.
CHRJSTOPHER P. HEUER
*
'Ir**
* A
/ \
5. Copy o/ter/oho 7 o/tAg Ae Architectura,
7577 o/T/ans* Detfe/ttan Je Dzes'
engineering devices. The coHection appears to have been compiled by the Wurttemburg
architect, Heinrich Schickhardt the Elder, and contains numerous watercolours of sluice
and lock designs. Schickhardt, architect and engineer in Alsace, and designer of the ideał
town of Freudenstadt, was an ardent bibliophile. When he died, un 1635, he possessed a
library of morę than 580 titles on fortification, perspective and architecture. ^ Several of
Vredeman de Vries' books were among these, including AcAJgcEt/w, from which this
watercolour image was in all likelihood copied.
The drawings in the Polish Academy sit alongside one of the largest collections of early
Vredeman prints in Northern Europę, many of which belonged initially to local citizens.
One of the first German versions of Vredeman's PerspecJTe, now in the Library, for
example, bears the ThArA of Nicolas van Bodek, burgomaster of Danzig before 1676,
and an earlier compilation of Vredeman's engravings still exists in a 17th-century binding
of calfskin, stamped with the coat of arms of Egbert van Kampen, a wealthy Danzig trader
who died in 1636 (ill. 6). The Danzig-born astronomer Johannes Hevelius, son of a
wealthy family of brewers, even annotated his own copy of Domenico Lampsonius' book
of portraits (1618) with some comments of his own about Vredeman de Vries. Hevelius,
who may have drawn inspiration from Vredeman's prints for his own astronomical
projects - such as the illustration of a reflexive sundial published in 1635 - wrote in his
pen-and-ink annotation to Vredeman's portrait that the artist had spent time in Danzig.
Hevelius even referred to the / oeJ wali painting by Vredeman of O/p/teMy
housed formerly in the A7pMS'Ap/'(Pol.:
^ Roman JANSSEN, AemncA w? Syiege/ [in:] JVgMe ZM
5c7mł/?nr<77, ed. R. Kjretzschmar, Stuttgart 2002, pp. 7-51.
^ BG PAN, sig. Na 1390,4. !n generai on Heveiius, see: Mary G. WINKLER, Albert van HELDEN, 'Johannes Hevelius
and the visuai language of astronomy', [in:] AM/na/rAA, m?<7
y7Joyoy/?grs' ń? ear/y wo&rn Enroyg, ed. J.V. Field, Cambridge 1993, pp. 97-116.