1. Tankard commemorating the promotion of Christian Röseler to journeyman in Toruń’s butchers guild before 1776. District Museum in Toruń, MT/S/1044, photo K. Deczyński
2. A pendant commemorating the promotion of Johann Georg Janusch to journeyman in Toruń’s butchers guild in 1768 or before, District Museum in Toruń, MT/S/1947, photo K. Deczyński
3. Bacchus and Satyr, drawing made as trial piece by the apprentice Jacob Wessel at the painters' guild in Gdańsk in 1733, National Museum in Gdańsk, MNG/SD/1092/R, photo: G. Nosorowski
4. A wardrobe design made as a master trial at the joiner’s guild in Gdańsk in 1670, State Archives in Gdańsk, 300, C/1773, no. 3
5. Bust of Johannes Hevelius, astronomer and member of the brewers’ guild in Gdańsk, 1788, National Museum in Gdańsk, MNG/SD/278/Rz, photo G. Nosorowski
6. A spoon made by the bungler Peter Draland who was allowed to sell his spoons in the very centre of the city of Gdańsk, first quarter of the 17th century,
National Museum in Gdańsk, MNG/SD/48/Mt, photo A. Leszczyński
7. Tankard donated in 1631 to the Gdańsk’s guild of masons and sculptors by the mother of a deceased guild member, 1615–1631, National Museum in Gdańsk,
MNG/SD/1049/Mt, photo: K. Sadowski
More to come soon ...
Franciszek Skibiński, in cooperation with Anna Baranowska-Fietkiewicz, Agnieszka Bembnista, Marta Konopacka, Michał Kurkowski, Lech Łopuski, Blanka Tokarska and Anna Zielińska
For almost a thousand years, guilds played a very important role in the European economy and social life as well as culture. These communities provided job security and mutual assistance; their importance went far beyond the professional sphere and included care for the sick, orphans and widows and communal prayer.
The masters in charge of workshops played the main role in the workshops, which usually resembled patriarchal families. Apprentices and journeymen lived in the master's house and sat at the table with his family. The guilds were supposed to ensure the quality of the products, not only in material terms, but also in moral terms, guaranteeing that they were made by an honest and God-fearing man. There was widespread distrust of people outside a certain community, resulting in discrimination against, for example, dissenters or people of foreign origins.
The emergence of guilds was linked to the emancipation of cities in the high Middle Ages. During this time, the so-called communal movement led to the emergence of urban communities with specific rights and privileges. In the cities of the Teutonic state in Prussia, and later in Royal Prussia, which became part of the Commonwealth of Poland Lithuania, they developed as early as in the fourteenth century.
Gradually, the guilds grew in importance, securing a monopoly on certain jobs and control over access to professions. For the representatives of the lower social strata, to which most of the craftsmen affiliated to the guilds belonged, membership gave the opportunity to participate in political life, which was dominated by the feudal lords and merchant elite.
Many of the guild-related objects show the pride of the members in their work and their own position. One example are the songs of the Gdańsk butchers composed by the poet Ludwig Knaust and published in 1673. The proud butchers referred to biblical history and classical antiquity, evoking apocryphal references to craft regulations dating back to King David, Ptolemy and even the garden of Eden, where the oldest guild statute was supposed to have been written. Their loyalty was to the Ten Commandments, the municipal laws, and the guild statutes.
For a long time, cities of the Royal Prussia, most importantly Gdańsk, remained the main centres of craft production in the former Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania. As a result of economic and social changes, many objects used in guild ceremonies inexorably lost their previous practical and symbolic functions and became collectors' and museum items. In Gdańsk, numerous guild related objects found their way to the City Museum (Stadtmuseum Danzig) founded in 1870, and to the Western Prussian Provincial Crafts Museum (Westpreussisches Provinzial-Gewerbe-Museum), founded in 1881, and after 1945 to their Polish successors. The first exhibition of guild memorabilia at the City Museum, entitled Art of the Danzig Guilds (Danziger Innungskunst), took place as early as 1926/1927. Equally important were private collectors, above all Lesser Giełdziński, who amassed thousands of objects related to the culture of Gdańsk and other cities of Royal Prussia, some of which were presented in the so-called 'Gdańsk Hall' (Danziger Diele), established in 1902.
Despite the loss of many valuable objects as a result of the Second World War, several hundreds of guild-related objects, ranging from the commonplace to the exceptional have been preserved in the museum collections in Gdańsk, Toruń and other cities of former Royal Prussia. Many of these objects have hitherto received little attention, the reason often being their modest form. However, the significance of historic objects lies not only in their material value or aesthetic quality, but also in their ability to mediate and depict their distant, their unknown and otherwise often elusive past. Even the most inconspicuous object can tell a story about the people and the world they lived in, the challenges they faced and the choices they made. Many of the objects on display reveal this distant world precisely through their ordinariness and direct connection to everyday life. Our aim is to recreate their history and contexts, and in doing so present their cultural significance.
A selection of works by Beata Sosna-Nowak: paper dresses for Athena, Caterina de' Medici, Venetian Lady, Marie Antoinette, Princess of Darkness
Beata Sosna-Nowak is a Polish artist who works with various types of paper to create life-size historical costumes. Here you can see a small selection from her work. To find out more and to get in touch with the artist, please write to us at collectingcentraleurope@gmail.com!
Beata was born in in Wodzislaw Slaski (Upper Silesia, Poland) but moved to London and Berlin after completing her education. She currently lives in Ottobeuren (Bavaria), where she combines her every-day life with a long-standing interest in the arts.
Her great fascination with colour encouraged her to become an interior designer before developing first ideas about a personal formal language and definition of the arts.
Beata has long studied elements such as colour, patterns, the effects of light, specific materials and artistic balance. Her main techniques and materials are water colour, oil colour, sand, pellets, but mostly paper.
Her appreciation of paper rests on the material's delicate and fragile qualities; it has to be formed with the utmost patience to turn it into durable works of art. She likens cutting through paper to walking through a mirror to find a changed realty on the other side.
As for content, Beata often concentrates on female heroines from ancient mythology and fairy tales to historical figures from the early modern period to the nineteenth century.