17th-century views of polish towns in the swedish royal collections at drottningholm palace

Abstract

The Royal Swedish Collection at Drottningholm palace includes, among various other such scenes, a series of battle paintings by Johan Philip Lemke (1631–1711). This painter, educated in the Netherlands and Italy, carried out two series of paintings to commemorate the wars of the two Swedish monarchs, Carl X Gustav and Carl XI. These enormous compositions painted on canvas were mounted into the walls of two rooms in the palace. One of these views, the series devoted to the victories of Carl X Gustav, comprises twelve pieces, eight of which depict panoramas of towns in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Carried out in 1690–1705, these views were copied from the engravings of Eric Johnson Dahlbergh (1625–1703), as is explained in the inscriptions. Unfortunately, the poor condition of these pictures (the effect of 18th-century ‘conservation’ using sand...) rules out comprehensive analysis of what is depicted in them. It can be no more than suspected that Lemke’s Drottningholm paintings were of a high artistic quality. As is proven by his drawings currently housed in the National Museum in Stockholm, this artist was undoubtedly a magnificent painter. These days, more than anything else the paintings under examination represent an interesting attitude of the painter towards history and glorifying the ruler in question.