A girl at the top window in the tenement house will appear every day from the 1st of May until the 1st of October 2006 at 1p.m., 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

The author of the figure’s design is Ewa Topolan, an artist, a sculptor associated with the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. This idea makes a reference to a novel by Jadwiga Łuszczewska - Deotyma (1834-1908) entitled “Panienka z okienka” (“A girl at the window”) which was published at the end of the 19th century in Warsaw.

This ‘old-time romance’ was created after the journey of the 24-year-old Deotyma with her parents by the Vistula River to Gdańsk in 1858. The result of this journey was her fascination with our city and its history. In her novel Deotyna presented the atmosphere of Gdańsk in an exceptionally expressive way, she paid special attention to a young resident of Gdańsk, Hedwiga, who was looking out of the window of a magnificent tenement house, called the Amber House in this “romance”.

Since the moment of its publication, the novel has been reissued lots of times and it has become some kind of an ‘obligatory’ book to read by successive generations of Poles. By reading this novel Polish people have expressed their exceptionally emotional connection with the most famous Polish harbour city. While visiting Gdańsk lots of them were vainly looking for the Amber House and the window. As professor Jerzy Samp has written: “Lots of times, while looking carefully at the tenement houses in Gdańsk, I was trying hard to find the one and only real round small window”.

However, the readers are encouraged to look for the tenement house and the window by the last sentences of the novel: “As the residents of Gdańsk are well known for respecting the monuments of the past, who knows, maybe this souvenir has still been preserved there? Maybe until today a girl at the window is still wistfully waiting and looking out for a sailor from the Puck fleet.”

The sentences quoted above close the novel and sound almost like the author’s testimony. However, at the same time they include a ready scenario and suggestions for further popularization of the over 100 year-old-legend and for the creation of its new material embodiment.