A wood engraving of Peterwardein seen across the Danube, cut for an illustrated weekly. The upper fortress holds the crown of the rock with the barrack range running along the crest; the Lower Town stretches along the waterline beneath it, a pontoon bridge reaches out from the left bank, and the near shore is a shelf of sand with figures beside a beached barge. The printed caption credits the drawing to S. Read, and the engraver has signed the plate in the water at the lower right. It was published as the front-page illustration of The Illustrated London News for 1 December 1860, from a drawing by the English artist and correspondent Samuel Read (1816–1883); the engraving is attributed to Mason Jackson (1819–1903), wood engraver and art editor of the paper.
About this place
A Habsburg star fortress on the right bank of the Danube, built between 1692 and 1780 on a site fortified since antiquity: the Romans held Cusum here, a medieval fortress followed, and Cistercian monks kept a monastery on the hill in the 13th century. Beneath its walls Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated a far larger Ottoman army on 5 August 1716. Nicknamed the Gibraltar on the Danube, the fortress conceals some 16 kilometres of underground counter-mine galleries dug in 1764-1776. On its clock tower the hands are reversed, the long hand showing the hours so that fishermen on the Danube could read the time from a distance. The fortress still stands over the river and houses the City Museum of Novi Sad.
On the card
THE TOWN AND FORTRESS OF PETERWARDEIN, ON THE DANUBE.—FROM A DRAWING BY S. READ.—SEE PAGE 507. / M. Jackson
- Date
- 1 December 1860
- Coordinates
- 45.25250, 19.86250
- Source
- The Illustrated London News, 1 December 1860
- Licence
- Public domain
- Size
- 2574 × 1779 px
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