Zdjęcia do najstarszej fotograficznej panoramy Warszawy z 1858 roku
Pictures for the oldest photographic panorama of Warsaw of 1858

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with twelve photographs taken in the 1850s by an anonymous author from the balcony encircling the lantern of the dome of the Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (ill. 3). The author of the article has recreated the situation and the conditions in which the photographs were taken. Two men were involved: one was working on the balcony moving the camera from place to another, placing, adjusting it and taking shots. The other one was staying in a dark attic corridor below the balcony where he was preparing negative materials (by coating glass plates with collodion) and developing them. The prints were made in a photographic studio. The layout of shadows allows the order and the approximate time of execution to be determined. The photographer started the work at about 10:40 a.m. After taking five shots he made a break for three hours and the sixth shot was taken at about 4:00 p.m., the seventh at about 4:30 p.m. Presumably the action of taking one photograph lasted 20 minutes (from moving and adjusting the camera till the controlling of a negative’s development). In the next part of the article the author describes precisely twelve photographs (ill. 4-15) and identifies non-existent buildings in the city in order to reveal that the panorama was made in 1858. The authorship is still unknown, but it was suggested that the work might have been carried out by Konrad Brandel (1838–1930), a young photographer employed at that time in the photographic studio of Karol Beyer. The purpose of this undertaking was to obtain a full panorama of the city after those twelve photographs were put together. However the project turned out to be unsuccessful because between the second and third as well as the fourth and fifth stages of photography there are missing parts and a different angle of inclination of the camera meant the majority of the shots could not be assembled into one wide view (ill. 19) – an end result which can only be achieved with some modifications by appropriate computer software (ill. 20). At present those photographs are a valuable iconographic document showing how Warsaw appeared in the past. The architectural profile started to change from the 1870s and nowadays only churches and buildings of historical value remain (palaces, Hotel Europejski), having been reconstructed after the damages of World War II.

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