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Warsztat Abrahama van den Blocke i publiczne przedsięwzięcia budowlane w Gdańsku w pierwszej ćwierci XVII wieku

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Skibiński F.

Biuletyn Historii Sztuki

2015

vol. 77

issue 2

241-265

The article focuses on Abraham van den Blocke’s works carried out on Gdansk’s major public buildings in the early 17th century, the profile of his workshop, and the position he held among the Gdansk artistic and architectural circles in the early 17th century. It also provides new information on the history of the raising of Gdansk’s major edifices of the time: the Grand Armoury, Długa Street Gate, and the Artus Manor. Abraham van den Blocke was responsible, first of all, for all the architectural decoration of the buildings, and in the case of the latter two, probably also for designing their architectural look. The first facility Van den Blocke was employed for was the Grand Armoury. According to the town bills, work on it was carried out in 1605-8. Over the first period, in 1605-6, he executed the stone decoration of the gables crowned with the figures of soldiers and sphinxes. In the following years, he worked on the unpreserved interior decoration; moreover, Van den Blocke executed an architectural casing of the well in front of the building’s eastern façade. Subsequently, he was employed to raise the Długa Street Gate. As of spring 1613 until the spring of the following year, he received regular weekly payments for stonemasonry jobs. Immediately upon the completion of the Długa Street Gate, the alteration of the Artus Manor began. The preserved sources testify to the simultaneous employment of two workshops for the purpose: a building and stonemason ones, respectively headed by Hans Strakowski and Abraham van den Blocke. At the same time, some unqualified workers, supervised by Philip Schumacher, performing certain auxiliary jobs and transporting building and stonemasonry materials, were present on-site. The works on the stately southern façade of the Artus Manor lasted until the end of 1616. In the meantime, Abraham van den Blocke was busy executing the architectural and sculptural ornaments of the elevation, including figural and decorative ones. Following this, he continued the finishing works in the interiors, just like he had previously done having completed the elevation of the Grand Armoury. Van den Blocke supervised some dozen individuals, mainly stonemason journeymen as well as sculptors. The conclusions drawn from the scrutiny of town bills are later compared with the information on Abraham van den Blocke’s workshop obtained from the records of the Gdansk Guild of Masons, Stonemasons, and Sculptors. As for the number of workers, his workshop clearly exceeded other Gdansk workshops, equalling some building ones. Although in the case of the majority of journeymen there is no information available as for their professional specializations, they were predominantly stonemasons. There were relatively few journeymen and apprentices defined as sculptors, though their number exceeded equivalent figures for most other Gdansk workshops. Abraham’s workshop is also compared to the studio of his father, Willem van den Blocke, the leading sculptor of the late 16th century, whose continuator it actually was in a way. Abraham was committed to working with monumental architecture to a much greater extent than his father, therefore his workshop was clearly larger than that of his father, the latter being typically sculptural. In Willem van den Blocke’s workshop, the journeymen defined as sculptors constituted almost half of the workforce, whereas relatively few of such journeymen worked for Abraham. What is more, the son had a stronger bond with Gdansk and with the local guild. As much as Willem worked first of all for customers from outside the city, Abraham was for many years employed by members of the town elites to execute both public and private commissions. To conclude, the role of Abraham van den Blocke as an architect is tackled. Since the process of designing architecture in the then Gdansk is hard to trace, we can only suppose what was happening in this respect. Architecture designing was at the time a complex, interdisciplinary process participated by representatives of different professions. In compliance with the routine of the time, Abraham van den Blocke may have played a major role in it as a sculptor. Moreover, he may have conceived the concept of the D³uga Street Gate and the Artus Manor, two innovatory projects of the then Gdansk.

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Warsztat Abrahama van den Blocke i publiczne przedsięwzięcia budowlane w Gdańsku w pierwszej ćwierci XVII wieku