Works of architecture and stone sculpture would never have been created without the existence of a supply network enabling access to assets crucial for their production, including stone. Based on archive quarries and analysis of existing works of architecture and stone sculpture, this article focuses on the importation of stone for the building and stonecutting industry in early modern Gdańsk. In the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century the city was experiencing an era of economic prosperity and became a major center of architecture and stone sculpture in the Baltic region and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Gdańsk authorities put much effort into securing suitable stone necessary to carry out their ambitious projects. Builders and sculptors based in the Baltic metropolis applied various kinds of stone imported from abroad, including limestone from Oland and Sweden, sandstone quarried in Bückeburg and Bentheim, Belgian marble, and English alabaster. The kind of stone most commonly used in local architecture and sculpture was, however, the sandstone from the Isle of Gotland. To obtain this material the city authorities often approached the Danish king, as revealed by numerous letters preserved in Gdańsk and Copenhagen archives. Each year several shipments of Gotland stone would arrive in the city, the amount of stone reaching up to 10,000 cubic feet. Some of the material destined for the public building works was then prepared by workers supervised by the ‘Bauknecht’. He was an official appointed by the city authorities to support the public building industry and to facilitate the work of specialized building and sculpting workshops by overlooking low-skilled workers and supply of materials. Some of the local builders and stonecutters were also involved in the importation of stone from Gotland. Besides carrying out major architectural and sculptural works, at least some of the guild masters running large workshops were engaged in the supply of necessary materials. For this reason, they had to maintain a network of professional contacts within the Baltic region and beyond. The most prominent among them was Willem van der Meer, called Barth, a stonecutter from Ghent established in Gdańsk. Between roughly 1590 and 1610, he supplied the city with a large amount of Gotland stone, including that used for the building of the Great Arsenal. Other important members of the local milieu engaged in the stone trade were Willem and Abraham van den Blocke as well as Wilhelm Richter, continuator of Van den Blocke’s enterprise often engaged by the city authorities. These findings broaden our understanding of the professional practices of builders and stone sculptors in Gdańsk and the Baltic region in the late 16th and in the 17th centuries.
Elaboration of a damage map the facades of a public building in the city of Triunfo/PE
