The increasing affluence of Gdansk was reflected in its external appearance, its buildings and architecture. As a consequence of the flourishing trade and crafts, Gdansk entered its period of splendour in 16th century. Testimony to the town’s development was the increasing population: from about 25,000 in the mid-15th century, to 77,000 in the mid-17th.
Learning, art and culture flourished here: the astronomer Johann Hevelius, physicist Daniel Fahrenheit (inventor of the temperature scale in °F), philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the artist Daniel Chodowiecki were citizens of Gdansk.
The town of Gdansk was very often the subject of painting, drawing or etching. Etchings from the collections of the Polish Maritime Museum show a continual development of Gdansk and – on the other hand – a recurrence of basic elements of its panorama: gothic churches and the renaissance town hall.
Gedanum – Gdansk, a copperplate by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg, Antwerp, ca 1575. A copperplate from the work "Civitates orbis Terrarum”, 1572–1618. Photo by Ewa Meksiak
Dantiscum– Gdansk by Matthaeus Merian, ca 1650. Photo by Ewa Meksiak
Siege of Gdansk by Russian and Saxon Forces in 1734 by Daniel Schulz and Georg Paul Busch, 1735. Photo by Ewa Meksiak