Wilhelm Richter i jego dzieła w katedrze gnieźnieńskiej

Abstrakt

One of the most important figures among the artisans and artists who flocked to Gdańsk from the German Reich in the 1620s and 1630s was Wilhelm Richter, a native of Bielefeld in northern Westphalia. Initially hired as a journeyman at Abraham van den Blockes workshop, which specialised in sculpture and architecture, after the Master s death Richter became the successor and the actual heir to the former master s practice. He put finishing touches to two tombstones started by van den Blocke: the statuę of Polands Primate Henryk Firlej in Łowicz; and that of Bishop Jerzy Zamoyski in Chełm Lubelski (nowmissing). In 1633, he took part in the assembly of the Neptune Fountain in the Long Market (in the late 18th c. the basin of the fountain replaced the old one). Richter designed a stone ornament for St Jacobs Gate in Gdańsk (demolished in 1895), and decorated the Town Hall with a column portal of Gotland limestone (replaced in 1768 by the current one). In 1651, he authored a family epitaph for St Marys Church, founded by Zygmunt Guldenstern. In 1653-54, commissioned by the Gniezno Cathedral Chapter, Richters workshop designed a set of four portals. Two of these early Baroąue works were placed in the presbytery, and the other two lead to the Chapels of Lord Jesus and the Corpus Christi. The scrutiny of the portals of a proven origin allowed to pinpoint the common features of Richter s work. Therefore, based on their construction and artistic form, the author ventures to attribute morę pieces in the Gniezno Metropolitan Church to the same source. These include the portals leading to the Łubieńskis’, Kołudzkis’, and St Stanislaus’ Chapels, as well as the epitaph of Aleksander Głemobcki and Piotr Odorowski. It is the author s hope that by means of a comparative analysis the sculptures showcased here will be the first among many to kick-start the search for morę pieces executed by Wilhelm Richter himself and his workshop.