Instytut Sztuki (Warschau) [Hrsg.]; Państwowy Instytut Sztuki (bis 1959) [Hrsg.]; Stowarzyszenie Historyków Sztuki [Hrsg.]: Biuletyn Historii Sztuki (80.2018)

130

Teresa Tylicka, Jacek Tylicki

Jerzy Fryderyk Steiner 's Drawings
from the Collection of Reverend Jan Jakub Haselau

The collection of 18th-century cartographic docu-
ments at the State Archives in Toruń (APT) includes
a substantial number of drawings from the dispersed
collection of Jan Jakub / Johann Jacob Haselau
(1736-91), a humanist born in Gdańsk and educated
in Leipzig, and minister of the Old Town Lutheran
Community in Toruń since 1763. Here, he joined the
local Protestant intellectual elite of wide intellectual
and artistic interests: clergymen, professors of the
local Academic Gymnasium, as well as editors ofthe
Thornische Wochentliche Nachrichten und Anzeigen
weekly. Reverend Haselau, a bibliophile and col-
lector, gathered - apart from an impressive book
collection - an extensive number of maps, prints,
and drawings showing views and plans of various
European cities and buildings, which in 1774 he had
bound in the form of a five-volume «artistic atlas»
under the title Tabularum topographicarum se-
cundum seriem alphabeticam dispositarum collectio
quinque voluminibus comprehensa Thorunii. Four
volumes of the atlas, covering localities in alpha-
betical order from A to Z, have been preserved in the
Toruń Archives; the whereabouts of the fifth are,
however, completely unknown. Following Haselau's
death, his collection was auctioned in 1792. The
Tabularum topographicarum atlas, purchased for
the Library of the Toruń Town Council, ended up in
the 19th century in the Town Archives. A part of
drawings and prints related to Toruń and its
surroundings, originally inserted in the fourth
volume of the atlas, were cut out «for better
conservation» in 1914, never to return there; they are
currently kept in different portfolios of the APT
cartographic collections. They include a set of nine
vistas displaying some of the town's architectural
monuments almost identical with corresponding
drawings from the lost album of Jerzy Fryderyk /
Georg Friedrich Steiner (1704-66), a Toruń amateur
artist, and a tanner by trade. The artist created this

series of 128 works, showing the panoramas of
Toruń and of other towns of the region, as well as,
among others, views and plans of Toruń buildings,
c. 1727-1744. Although prepared for print, the album
was never published for unknown reasons. The
collection, documented by photographs, disappeared
in 1945, though some copies of its items, executed
several years later, and named «The album of
Pseudo-Steiner» (now in Toruń District Museum)
have been preserved, being possibly made by the
master himself for Toruń collectors.
The illustrations removed from Reverend
Haselau's atlas that are modelled on Steiner's views,
made in ink and pen on paper and washed with
watercolours, include the following buildings: the
non-existent Lutheran church of the Holy Trinity in
the New Market; the Catholic church of St. Jacob;
the Lutheran church of St. George in the suburb; the
burial chapel of Szymon Weiss, adjacent to and lost
with the latter; the dansker of the former Teutonic
Castle; the former Jesuit College, now recon-
structed; the Artus House, or Arthurian Manor in the
Old Market (two presentations); as well as the
unpreserved 18th century Gate of St. Jacob. Their
former inclusion in the fourth volume of the
Tabularum topographicarum atlas is testified to by
its list of contents provided in handwriting by the
collection owner. The works may have been
executed specifically for the Reverend, or purchased
by him at one of the auctions of holdings of local
humanists, held in Toruń in the 2nd half of the 18th
century, like, for insstance, of Rev. Andreas
Christlieb Dittmann, Prof. Johann Gottlieb Wil-
lamovius, or Prof. Gottfried Centner. It is likely that
«The album of Pseudo-Steiner» from 1756, men-
tioned above, once formed part of the latter's
collection. It contains some works showing Toruń
buildings nearly identical to those from the
collection of J. J. Haselau.
Translated by Magdalena Iwińska
and Jacek Tylicki