Graphic artwork 'View over Hrodno'

This graphic artwork portrays a view over the city of Hrodno from the year 1567.
It is an important iconographic source. Cult and other objects representative of the various confessions are shown and identified via separate inscriptions in Latin and German, important events in Lithuanian history have also been recorded. We see nobles assembling at the diet where negotiations about the forthcoming union between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were to take place. One of the most important scenes shows how on July 24, 1567, the Lithuanian marshal Jan Wołłowicz met with the Moscow envoys led by Teodor Kolychev the Wise. In addition to this delegation, we can also see Turkish, Tatar and Wallach envoys.
The city panorama also demonstrates daily life in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: various crafts, warfare, wooden and brick architecture, clothing and other details.
It is believed that the artist Johann Adelhauser could have come to Hrodno with a diplomatic mission sent by the Holy Roman Emperor, where he created a series of drawings and sketches. It was based on these preliminary works that the Nuremberg graphic artist Matthias Zündt created this particular work.
This was the first exhibit in the collections of the National Museum – Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, and the first gift to the reconstructed Palace of the Grand Dukes generously donated by Dr. Tomasz Niewodniczański, a German businessman and collector who was born in Vilnius and considered himself a Pole.