The Malbork Castle Museum

The amber collection at the Malbork Castle Museum
Elbieta Mierzwiska

Amber products began to be collected at Malbork Castle shortly after the museum was established there (1961), while the permanent “History of Amber” exhibition was opened four years later, in July 1965. It was a novel and ambitious idea, all the more so because at the time the items available in the market were mainly mass produced at the Amber Artefacts Factory in Gdańsk-Wrzeszcz or bought as small souvenirs through the Cepelia folk-art institution. However, the amber processing tradition in Poland goes back to the remote times of the Stone Age, while amber art played no mean role in the history of Polish handicraft. Unfortunately, due to the brittle quality of the material, improper storage, many wars and historical cataclysms, not many historical amber artefacts survived until our times. Therefore, the biggest problem was to find antique artefacts in order to present the most complete spectrum possible to the visitors, from the ancient times to the present. The oldest specimens in our collection come mainly from excavations. These are Neolithic items from the Żuławy (Vistula Lowland) region obtained through archaeological research performed by the Archaeology Institute of the Warsaw University and financed by the Museum. The most precious post-medieval (17th-18th centuries) artefacts, made in the heyday of amber craft, come mainly from purchases made at Franciszek Studziński’s antique shop in Paris and from the former collection of the National Museum in Warsaw, transferred to Malbork by the decision of the Minister of Culture and Art. One of the most valuable artefacts in the collection: King Stanislaus August Poniatowski’s cabinet, was donated by Lady Barbara Carmont of Scotland.

Many years of painstaking search and purchases made in the antique market in Poland and abroad made it possible to amass a collection in Malbork which today has ca. 2 thousand exhibits. From the very beginning, apart from historical artefacts, natural amber nuggets in various shapes and sizes, colours and degrees of transparency, and specimens with organic inclusions were purchased as well. Once contemporary artists became interested in amber, which was at the beginning of the 1970s, the Malbork Museum began collecting contemporary artefacts of jewellery art with amber. The opening of the Malbork exhibition which presented the long-standing and rich tradition of amber processing in Poland was certainly a factor in initiating this trend in Polish artistic handicraft. Perceived as Poland’s native stone, amber became one of the most frequently used jewellery materials, while customers from abroad associate it with Poland almost as a matter of fact.

The most valuable artefacts of the Malbork Collection are:

• a collection of Neolithic artefacts from 3,500 years ago (the Rzucewo Culture) from the Żuławy (Vistula Lowland) region, from sites described as the largest ancient centre of amber obtaining and processing;
• figure of Hermes, a miniature copy of a bronze statue by Lysippos;
• unique examples of Late-Renaissance jewellery: a man’s necklace made of sculpted beads, and the necklace of the Duchess Dorota Sybilla of Silesia;
• Early-Baroque Gdańsk jewel case made of multi-colour translucent amber;
• 17th century cutlery set with sculpted amber handles;
• case from the workshop of Michel Redlin, (ca.1680) decorated with engraved medallions, topped with a three-dimensional figurine of Ceres, the goddess of harvest;
• house altar with a figure of the Madonna with Baby Jesus, decorated with ivory plaques;
• architecturally structured multi-storey altar decorated with ivory plaques depicting scenes from the Old and New Testaments;
• jewel case by famous Gdańsk amber craftsman, Christoph Maucher; Baroque case richly decorated with mythological sculpture related to the goddess Venus;
• case associated with King Stanislaus Leszczyński; a wooden case veneered with amber, with decorative eglomise elements;
• King Stanislaus August Poniatowski’s cabinet; a miniature cupboard with a figure of the Madonna in its recess, with engraved figural scenes and inscriptions about the most important events of the king’s reign, including a little-known episode when the sovereign was kidnapped by the Bar Confederates;
• 17th and 18th century bibelots, parlour games and interior furnishings, including perfume boxes, snuffboxes, chess sets, candle holders, boxes for writing implements, lace-making accessories;
• examples of folk amber art from the Kurpie region;
• collection of 19th century pipes and cigarillos made of silver and meerschaum with amber mouthpieces, and hookah (Middle Eastern water pipe) mouthpieces

The establishing in Malbork of a collection (and exhibition) dedicated solely to amber made it possible to reveal the role of this material in the history of artistic craftsmanship in Europe, which is still relatively unknown and overlooked even in history of art textbooks. This ambitious goal is also supported by the presentation of selected artefacts from our collection abroad. During the last quarter century, we presented them in many European countries, as well as in the USA and Japan. The popularising activities carried out by the Malbork Castle Museum, through a large number of publications on our collection (catalogues of exhibitions organised abroad, a catalogue of selected collection items, a richly illustrated album published for the 40th anniversary of the Museum), contributed greatly to the well-deserved publicity enjoyed by this unique collection not only in Poland.
At present, work is carried out on the new artistic setting of the exhibition. At the end of this year, it will be opened to the visitors in a new contemporary ambience with the latest multimedia technology. Its size, and consequently the number of exhibits on display, will increase as well. The intriguing architecture of the interior in the north-eastern ground floor of the Middle Castle will house the chronologically oldest part of the collection: mainly the artefacts from 3,500 years ago which originate from the excavations in the area of Niedźwiedziówka, Wybicko and Stare Babki (Stegna Municipality).

The author is a Senior Curator of the Malbork Castle Museum Amber Collection