Kredytowe źródła finansowania tapiserii Zygmunta Augusta a ich wartość materialna w XVII wieku
ENThe outstanding collection of king Sigismund Augustus’ arrases was purchased partly thanks to a loan granted in 1559 by Jacob Herbrot’s bank in Augsburg, but mainly, however, through the agency of Roderigo Dermoyen, a tapestry maker from Brussels. The order amounted to 12,000 florins (to be paid in three instalments), while the total sum paid by king Sigismund Augustus for tapestries around 1560 amounted probably to cat 72,000 florins. The history of the purchase leads us to Gdansk (Danzig), to the Loitzs Bank and Prussian royal officials Johannes Brandes and Jan Kostka who held in their hands financial matters of this artistic initiative. Through their hands passed a large sum of money the king allocated for the purchase of arrases, deriving revenue either from duties in Kaunas (Kowno) and excise tax on salt collected in Gdansk, or from trade in forest products from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The history of the arrases is interwoven with Gdansk also because they were kept in the Gdansk City Hall after the Swedish troops entered Poland in 1655. The arrases remained in Gdansk in charge of king John II Casimir Vasa’s official Georg Johannes Henninges, and then as a security for a loan given to the last Vasa king by Franciszek Gratta. Fortunately, the tapestries were lucky enough to have avoided dangers and inheritance perturbations after the death of the last Vasa king and returned to Warsaw in 1724.
