Oraşul Sebeş în reprezentări de epocă
Sebeş Town in Epoch Representations

Summary/Abstract: The past history of a town can be known from written documents, but also from pictorial representations such as paintings, engravings or maps. Some of these may date several centuries back and, as they are made by contemporaries, can provide important and accurate information which, corroborated by other sources, allows for faithful historical reconstruction. In the present paper we will describe several pictorial representations of Sebeş made between the 17th and the 19th centuries. The oldest pictorial representation of Sebeş known so far is an etching by H. Jacob Schollenberger which was printed in Nürnberg in 1666 in a book by J. Tröster: Das Alt – und neue – Teutsche Dacia, das ist Neu Beschrebung des Landes Siebenbürgen. The representation is hardly realistic, although one can recognize some aspects from reality: the gates of the town and the East-West orientation of the two main streets of Sebeş. However, all the other buildings are entirely a work of imagination: the churches, the fortress and the private houses have nothing to do with an accurate description of the town. On the contrary, J. J. Haans’ pictorial representation (1736) gives a fairly faithful description of Sebeş in the first half of the 18th century. The town is regarded from North-East and in the forefront one can see the Evangelic church and the eastern side of the fortress. This is the only image available in which the upper side of the church choir can be seen (during a “restoration” at the end of the 18th century (1789-1798) it was to be replaced by a massive cornice made of stone). In the same pictorial representation, one can see the eastern gate, the towers of the inner town and the church nearby the cemetery from the Romanian suburb. Ludwig Rohbok’s painting (1863) is not so rich in details as the one already described. The artist did not choose an appropriate point of view and did not have a satisfactory perspective on the town. Consequently, a large part of the representation consists of the roofs of public buildings, among which the Evangelic and Franciscan churches are easily noticeable. Two of the three Romanian churches which existed at the time, can also be seen in the painting: the Greek-Catholic church (1818) and the Orthodox church (1824). R. Pühringer’s watercolour (1937) – which reproduces an image from 1820 – describes a part of the main street which leads to the Town Square, along Petrigasse. One can notice that the buildings have undergone little or no transformation, with the exception of the old town garrison which was bought by F. Binder in the middle of the 19th century and later changed beyond recognition. Another watercolour by an unknown artist describes the Old Town Square on a fair day during the 19th century. The most conspicuous building is the Evangelical church, but in general the image is rather poor in details.

• Details
• Contents