Rysunki Jerzego Fryderyka Steinera z kolekcji pastora Jana Jakuba Haselaua
Jerzy Fryderyk Steiner’s Drawings from the Collection of Reverend Jan Jakub Haselau

Summary/Abstract: Jerzy Fryderyk Steiner’s Drawings from the Collection of Reverend Jan Jakub Haselau The collection of 18th-century cartographic documents at the State Archives in Toruń (APT) includes a substantial number of drawings from the dispersed collection of Jan Jakub / Johann Jacob Haselau (1736-91), a humanist born in Gdańsk and educated in Leipzig, and minister of the Old Town Lutheran Community in Toruń since 1763. Here, he joined the local Protestant intellectual elite of wide intellectual and artistic interests: clergymen, professors of the local Academic Gymnasium, as well as editors of the Thornische Wöchentliche Nachrichten und Anzeigen weekly. Reverend Haselau, a bibliophile and collector, gathered – apart from an impressive book collection – an extensive number of maps, prints, and drawings showing views and plans of various European cities and buildings, which in 1774 he had bound in the form of a five-volume ‘artistic atlas’ under the title Tabularum topographicarum secundum seriem alphabeticam dispositarum collectio quinque voluminibus comprehensa Thorunii. Four volumes of the atlas, covering localities in alphabetical order from A to Z, have been preserved in the Toruń Archives; the whereabouts of the fifth are, however, completely unknown. Following Haselau’s death, his collection was auctioned in 1792. The Tabularum topographicarum atlas, purchased for the Library of the Toruń Town Council, ended up in the 19th century in the Town Archives. A part of drawings and prints related to Toruń and its surroundings, originally inserted in the fourth volume of the atlas, were cut out ‘for better conservation’ in 1914, never to return there; they are currently kept in different portfolios of the APT cartographic collections. They include a set of nine vistas displaying some of the town’s architectural monuments almost identical with corresponding drawings from the lost album of Jerzy Fryderyk / Georg Friedrich Steiner (1704-66), a Toruń amateur artist, and a tanner by trade. The artist created this series of 128 works, showing the panoramas of Toruń and of other towns of the region, as well as, among others, views and plans of Toruń buildings, c. 1727-1744. Although prepared for print, the album was never published for unknown reasons. The collection, documented by photographs, disappeared in 1945, though some copies of its items, executed several years later, and named ‘The album of Pseudo-Steiner’ (now in Toruń District Museum) have been preserved, being possibly executed by the master himself for Toruń collectors. The illustrations removed from Reverend Haselau’s atlas that are modelled on Steiner’s views, made in ink and pen on paper and washed with watercolours, include the following buildings: the non-existent Lutheran church of the Holy Trinity in the New Market; the Catholic church of St. Jacob; the Lutheran church of St. George in the suburb; the burial chapel of Szymon Weiss, adjacent to and lost with the latter; the dansker of the former Teutonic Castle; the former Jesuit College, now reconstructed; the Artus House, or Arthurian Manor in the Old Market (two presentations); as well as the unpreserved 18th century Gate of St. Jacob. Their former inclusion in the fourth volume of the Tabularum topographicarum atlas is testified to by its list of contents provided in handwriting by the collection owner. The works may have been executed specifically for the Reverend, or purchased by him at one of the auctions of holdings of local humanists, held in Toruń in the 2nd half of the 18th century, like, for insstance, of Rev. Andreas Christlieb Dittmann, Prof. Johann Gottlieb Willamovius, or Prof. Gottfried Centner. It is likely that 'The album of Pseudo-Steiner' from 1756, mentioned above, once formed part of the latter's collection. It contains some works showing Toruń buildings nearly identical to those from the collection of J. J. Haselau.

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