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Majstersztyki ślusarzy krakowskich w wieku XIX

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Myśliński M.

Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

2012

vol. 60

issue 1

119-132

In 2009 the library of the Historical Museum of Cracow acquired two manuscript volumes containing minutes of assemblies of the Cracow guild of locksmiths from the years 1825-1889 and 1889-1923. The records include the names of masters, journeymen and apprentices, as well as their origin, professional career dates and apprenticeship history. The volumes, of several hundred pages each, are a source of invaluable data on the economic and social history of Cracow in the 19th and 20th c. Among the major pieces of information contained in the books are detailed descriptions of the masterpieces (German Meisterstück) required from the candidates to the guild. The procedure was relative simple: after the candidate’s documents were verified, he was ordered by the masters to produce a particular object – a lock, a chest or some other mechanism. The process of producing a masterpiece, whose design had to be drawn first, was supervised by two specially appointed masters (called schaumajstrowie, from German Schaumeister). The presentation of the work and its approval by the assembled masters of the guild opened the professional career of a new master. The descriptions of over 130 masterpieces provide grounds for the following three conclusions. The descriptions concern mainly the complex construction of the objects; they do not require that the masterpiece have any artistic value. Locksmith’s works with traces of artistic forms are unique and occur only at the turn of the 20th c. In most cases it is impossible to identify surviving mechanisms as masterpieces, since masterpieces were not signed and they were treated as usual pieces produce for sale. It is necessary to work out a glossary of locksmithing nomenclature used with reference to details of particular constructions (most terms are of German origin, although they were spelt phonetically) Such a glossary would help in a better apprehension of the accounts of locksmiths’ work, in preparing catalogue descriptions of such objects as well as in conservation and reconstruction practice.

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1 Kwartalnik Historii Kultury Materialnej

1 Myśliński M.

1 2012

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Majstersztyki ślusarzy krakowskich w wieku XIX