Lottery ticket

This lithograph with cut off edges, preserved in the Wilanów collections, is a great puzzle. Is it really a lottery ticket? Or perhaps it is simply an announcement about a winning? Regardless of the truth, the modestly sized print is an intriguing document of daily life and the manners and morals of its time. The prize was either the Land of Dubiecko or 150 000 roubles in gold. Dubiecko on the San has an interesting history. It received town rights already in 1407 and was the birthplace of Ignacy Krasicki, writer, poet and one of the most eminent representatives of the Polish Enlightenment, whose writings on several occasions mention Dubiecko. Apart from the communiqué about the winning, the lithograph contains an attractive and picturesque genre scene with accessories: an open landscape full of people pursuing their daily occupations against the backdrop of a residence, probably Dubiecko Palace, redesigned at the turn of the eighteenth century in the Classical style.