Leseprobe

Gdańsk and Beyond 163 q the latter with detailed knowledge about the advan- tages and disadvantages offered by the city. 22 During the period roughly between 1580 and 1620 Gdańsk was dominated by artists and architects from the Low Countries, who had begun to arrive there in greater numbers in the 1560s. 23 Despite the Nether- landish preponderance on the market, the Gdańsk ar- tistic milieu remained highly complex, with masters and journeymen of diverse origins working alongside each other. One of the foreign masters, who played an important role in shaping Gdańsk architecture and sculpture, was Hans Kramer (before 1550–1577), an ar- chitect and engineer from Saxony, who arrived in the city already as an experienced practitioner of his craft in 1565. 24 He worked in the city until his death in 1577, for instance building the splendid house of Dietrich Lylge together with Willem van der Meer the Elder, a stonecutter from Ghent responsible for the rich detail- ing of the façade (fig. 3). 25 He also cooperated with em- igrants from Saxony and Silesia as well as from Ham- burg. For instance, in 1571 he employed assistants from Dresden and fromGuben and a year later from Freiberg (most likely Freiberg in Saxony), Wrocław (Breslau), Gotha, Chemnitz and Halle. 26 The presence of the ac- complished Saxon architect thus facilitated the influx of other craftsmen from that region and shaped the pat- terns of migration. The example of Hans Kramer shows that the Prus- sian artistic network extended beyond Baltic connec- tions. A major route to Prussia led from the south, from Saxony, Silesia, and the Polish province of Greater Poland to Toruń and further north to Gdańsk and Kalin- ingrad. This road was likely taken by Hans Kramer and other builders, stonecutters and sculptors from Saxony and Silesia who arrived in Gdańsk. Many builders and stonemasons worked in other cities located on this route, most importantly Poznań (Posen) in Greater Poland and Toruń in Royal Prussia. As early as the 1560s, sculptors from Silesia were present in Kaliningrad, including Andreas Walther from Breslau, likely a mem- ber of the Walther clan of sculptors who also worked in Saxony. 27 Movement along this route was bilateral, and artists from Kaliningrad and Elbląg, such as the sculp- tors Samuel Kops and Sebastian Sandenbrück (Van den Bruck/Van der Broecke?) as well as the painters Andreas Stuss and Jacob Stephan, travelled south in the late six- teenth and early seventeenth centuries. 28 Moving inside Prussia Once in Prussia, artists and architects often travelled, either invited by local authorities to work onmajor pro- jects, or in search of better professional possibilities. With its booming economy and highly developed mar- ket for artists and architects, Gdańsk attracted many accomplished and aspiring professionals from across the region. This is well illustrated by the brothers Mat- thias (1564–1588) and FabianNeisser (1559–1605), a wood- carver and a painter whomoved there fromToruń in the late 16th century. Once in Gdańsk, they collaborated with artists already established in the city, including émigrés from other parts of Europe. Tellingly, Fabian Neisser married a daughter of Aegidius van den Blocke (1530–1573), a woodcarver from Mechelen who arrived in Gdańsk in the late 1560s. The family epitaph cre- ated by the brothers and set up in St Mary’s Church in Toruń followed printed designs by Cornelis Floris and Hans Vredeman de Vries which they had likely learned Fig. 3 Gdańsk, 16 Chlebnicka Street, House of Dietrich Lylge (the so-called ‘English House’). Hans Kramer, Willem van der Meer the Elder, 1568–1570. See also Abb. 13 in the essay by K. Ottenheym (photo: open source/Pumeks, 17 November 2005)