DOI Artikel:
Wardzyński, Michał: Import kamieni i dzieł rzeźby z Gotlandii do Rzeczypospolitej (od XIII do 2. połowy XVIII w.)
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.28101#0123
Lithuanian Commonwealth, just like all the other countries of the Baltic See region, as raw
material, prefabricates, or ready items. Due to its deep and long-lasting shine, in North-
ern and Central Europe of the modern times it was called lapis sueticus and treated like
marble.
‘Swedish stone, first of all Oland limestone, was used in the late Middle Ages to make
relief tombstones. Starting from the 16th c., there began a mass import of unworked floor and
tombstone slabs from Oland; those were polished and sculpted in by almost all the Gdansk
stonemasons and sculptors. From Gdansk and Elbląg via Konigsberg they reached the far
destinations inland the Commonwealth, as far as Ruthenia and Cracow in the south.
Significantly less far reaching were the tombstones which in the case of those founded
by the Church or knights gradually evolved throughout the 2nd half of the 16th c. to resemble
contemporary Renaissance Italian tombstones: vertical on-wall half-or full-figure represen-
tations: either standing or lying down. In the 16th-17th c. these were commissioned almost
exclusively by town patricians and clergy from the Prussian chapters. Similar representa-
tions were much scarcer among the gentry in the region and were executed merely for the
Konopackis and their related families.
Starting from the 1580s., in the workshops of Gdansk, Elbląg, Konigsberg, as well as
other centres around the Baltic coast, the red varieties of Oland limestone and Burgsvik
sandstone became the basic media in small architecture and sculpture. The uniąue feature
of those artistic circles could be found in the creative incorporating of the ‘Swedish stone’
into a contrasting tricolour range of marble, Moza limestone, and English alabaster trans-
planted there in the 3rd ąuarter of the 16th c. by the disciples of Cornelis Floris de Vriendt,
who headed by Willem van den Blocke had not so long arrived from southern Nether-
lands. Lapides suetices were regarded by sculptors and stonemasons of the time as a much
cheaper material and a more readily available surrogate of other materials imported from
Western Europe at a much higher cost. The majority of works of the van der Blocke family
were precisely made in ‘Swedish stone’, while the precious alabaster or white Carrara marble
were reserved strictly for prestigious royal or magnate commissions. The same material hap-
pened to serve as the main medium for, inter alia, Italian sculptors: Constante and Giacomo
Tencallon, employed to execute the court foundations of King Sigismund III Vasa in Vil-
nius, Warsaw, and Mazovia. Moreover, Gotland Burgsvik sandstone was used on a mass
scale for ornamental and figural decoration in big architecture, as it is to be found
in all the buildings in Gdansk, Elbląg, and Toruń, some other minor works of the
workshops in Great Poland and Kujawy, as well as in Podlasie and the Grand Duchy
of Lithuania.
In the Gdansk and Elbląg centres the same tendency prevailed in the artistic output
of subseąuent generations of artists until the 2nd half of the 18th c. when the material
imported from Sweden finally supplanted the until then used ashen-greyish Devon
limestone excavated in Dębnik/Czerna.
Import kamieni
i dzieł rzeźby...
material, prefabricates, or ready items. Due to its deep and long-lasting shine, in North-
ern and Central Europe of the modern times it was called lapis sueticus and treated like
marble.
‘Swedish stone, first of all Oland limestone, was used in the late Middle Ages to make
relief tombstones. Starting from the 16th c., there began a mass import of unworked floor and
tombstone slabs from Oland; those were polished and sculpted in by almost all the Gdansk
stonemasons and sculptors. From Gdansk and Elbląg via Konigsberg they reached the far
destinations inland the Commonwealth, as far as Ruthenia and Cracow in the south.
Significantly less far reaching were the tombstones which in the case of those founded
by the Church or knights gradually evolved throughout the 2nd half of the 16th c. to resemble
contemporary Renaissance Italian tombstones: vertical on-wall half-or full-figure represen-
tations: either standing or lying down. In the 16th-17th c. these were commissioned almost
exclusively by town patricians and clergy from the Prussian chapters. Similar representa-
tions were much scarcer among the gentry in the region and were executed merely for the
Konopackis and their related families.
Starting from the 1580s., in the workshops of Gdansk, Elbląg, Konigsberg, as well as
other centres around the Baltic coast, the red varieties of Oland limestone and Burgsvik
sandstone became the basic media in small architecture and sculpture. The uniąue feature
of those artistic circles could be found in the creative incorporating of the ‘Swedish stone’
into a contrasting tricolour range of marble, Moza limestone, and English alabaster trans-
planted there in the 3rd ąuarter of the 16th c. by the disciples of Cornelis Floris de Vriendt,
who headed by Willem van den Blocke had not so long arrived from southern Nether-
lands. Lapides suetices were regarded by sculptors and stonemasons of the time as a much
cheaper material and a more readily available surrogate of other materials imported from
Western Europe at a much higher cost. The majority of works of the van der Blocke family
were precisely made in ‘Swedish stone’, while the precious alabaster or white Carrara marble
were reserved strictly for prestigious royal or magnate commissions. The same material hap-
pened to serve as the main medium for, inter alia, Italian sculptors: Constante and Giacomo
Tencallon, employed to execute the court foundations of King Sigismund III Vasa in Vil-
nius, Warsaw, and Mazovia. Moreover, Gotland Burgsvik sandstone was used on a mass
scale for ornamental and figural decoration in big architecture, as it is to be found
in all the buildings in Gdansk, Elbląg, and Toruń, some other minor works of the
workshops in Great Poland and Kujawy, as well as in Podlasie and the Grand Duchy
of Lithuania.
In the Gdansk and Elbląg centres the same tendency prevailed in the artistic output
of subseąuent generations of artists until the 2nd half of the 18th c. when the material
imported from Sweden finally supplanted the until then used ashen-greyish Devon
limestone excavated in Dębnik/Czerna.
Import kamieni
i dzieł rzeźby...