Joanna Woch
Polish Institute of World Art Studies, Poland
People fascinated with Siberia in the 19th century were mainly researchers, collectors, travellers, artists and adventurers, as well as exiles who passionately discovered the unknown, not only geographically and botanically, but also culturally and spiritually. It was a fashionable custom to keep a diary during a journey and to create albums with views of cities, depictions of the monuments and citizens. In contrast to the expeditions across Europe, those to the Asian continent, in particular to Siberia, were dangerous and rare. The paper discusses the first Siberian expeditions, which were undertaken by Polish artists: Jan Krzysztof Damel (1780–1840), Leopold Niemirowski (1810–1833) and Bronislaw Zaleski (1819–1880).