Dantzic.

Title

Dantzic.

Description

Danzig (Gdańsk) ;is a Polish city on the Baltic coast. It is the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship and the capital of Kashubia, Poland's principal seaport and the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.

ca. 1815

Artist

Bowyer (1758-1834)

Robert Bowyer (1758 - 1834) was an English watercolor and miniature painter and publisher, probably a pupil of the miniature painter John Smart. He exhibited his first works at the Society of Artists in 1782 and at the Royal Academy in 1783. In 1789 he was appointed miniature painter to Queen Sophie Charlotte. In the 1790s, he began to publish his own prints.

Historical Description

The site was ruled on behalf of Poland by the Samborides' duchy and consisted of a settlement at the modern Long Market, craftsmen settlements along the Old Ditch, German merchant settlements around the St Nicolas church and the old Piast stronghold. In 1308, the town was taken by Brandenburg and the Teutonic Knights restored order. In 1440, the city participated in the foundation of the Prussian Confederation which was an organisation opposed to the rule of the Teutonic Knights. This led to the Thirteen Years' War against the Teutonic Monastic State of Prussia. Gaining free and privileged access to Polish markets, the seaport prospered while simultaneously trading with the other Hanseatic cities. After the Second Peace of Thorn (1466) with the Teutonic Monastic State of Prussia the warfare between the latter and the Polish crown ended permanently. Danzig was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1793, in the Second Partition of Poland. An attempt of student uprising against Prussia led by Gottfried Benjamin Bartholdi was crushed quickly by the authorities in 1797. During the era of Napoleon the city became a free city in the period extending from 1807 to 1814, after that it again became part of Prussia.