– AN IMPORTANT CENTER OF CARRIAGE PRODUCTION ! FROM THE 18TH CENTURY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY Before I proceed to the main topic of my speech, I would like to thank very much the organisers for inviting me to participate actively in the symposium in Williamsburg. I am the first Pole to give a speech at this world-renowned meeting. Admittedly, it is not the first case of a speech made by a Pole in America, as many years ago Dr. Teresa Żurawska from Łańcut Castle delivered a speech on King John III Sobieski’s carriages at an international museum conference in Washington. In his brilliant work “Kutschen Europas”, Andres Furger dedicated only two sentences to Polish carriage building, mentioning just one producer. Nowadays, is a country extremely poor in material culture relics related to horse-drawn transport, unfortunately including archive sources, which are indispensable for thorough research into this subject. After the loss of independence at the end of the 18th century, the Napoleonic Wars, the national uprisings, the two World Wars, which swept through the Polish lands causing total destruction, the country saw a period of totalitarian oppression related to the new system, which in a way completed the act of destruction of historical evidence. For ages, the Polish culture had been marked by the landowning ethos, with a love for the land, tradition and a certain lifestyle, an important element of which was horse breeding and usage. Polish manor houses took more pride in possessing excellent horse-drawn vehicles and mounts than other material goods. When this world was gone for ever, very little material evidence of it was left. Relics from the early period in Polish collections only include remains of three King John III Sobieski’s carriages from the second half of the 17th century at the Wilanów Palace Museum, one chaise produced in Gdańsk in the first half of the 18th century and one side of the body of an elegant gala berlin belonging to the Counts Drohojowski family from the first quarter of the 18th century at the National Museum in Cracow, and there are only around 10 vehicles from the first half of the 19th century. From this period, a few sleighs for carnival sleigh rides have been preserved, many of which are incomplete. Polish collections include somewhat more items from the second half of the 19th century, but the most items date from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and from the first half of the 20th century. In these collections, there are rather few Polish-made vehicles, including items from the biggest production center, Warsaw. Relatively little is known about the beginnings of carriage building in Warsaw. The modest archive sources have not been thoroughly studied in this respect yet. Since the guild system consolidated, that is essentially since the reign of King Sigismund I, who issued legal acts formalising various crafts in the Polish lands, including Warsaw, we can search for archive information on the production of horse- drawn vehicles. In the case of this early period, it is difficult to determine the guild of the producers of finished carriages but I think that like in Western Europe they joined the guild of saddlers unlike bodymakers and wheelwrights, who organised themselves into a separate guild. The city archives of old Warsaw mention many saddlers operating there already since the end of the 15th century who owned their own masonry houses, which tells us that this occupation was fairly profitable. 2. An economic boom in Warsaw related to the presence of the royal court and other state institutions certainly started when King Sigismund III moved the capital city from Cracow to Warsaw in 1596. Unfortunately, Polish collections do not include any carriages from this period but only iconographic sources, most importantly the famous Stockholm Roll depicting the entry of the wedding procession of King Sigismund III and Archduchess Constance von Hapsburg of Austria into Cracow, on 4th December 1605. This excellent document of the period presents also several elegant vehicles used at that time by the upper classes. These items were probably not made by carriage builders from Warsaw but they presumably produced similar brozheks, landaus and coaches. The only Polish artefact from this period is Brańsk Starost (Mayor) Franciszek Leśnowolski’s coach from around 1640, possibly produced in craftsman’s workshops in Gdańsk. It can be found in the collection of the Moscow Kremlin, where it is deliberately attributed to Russian craftsmen, and the said Franciszek Leśnowolski is regarded as a Russian citizen and a Starost (Mayor) of the Russian city of Bryansk, although it is indisputably contradicted by a preserved Polish coat of arms on the front and hind part of the undercarriage. The vehicle was probably a piece of booty from the Muscovite invasion of Poland in 1660, when the town of Brańsk was plundered. Other Polish artefacts from this period remaining abroad are gilded coats of arms and buckles from a harness of King Sigismund III – currently it is in the Livrustkammaren collection in Stockholm. It was probably a piece of war booty from the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1656. The finish of all these royal carriages of John III Sobieski was made in Warsaw and its painting aspect is associated with the workshop of the court painter Jerzy Eleuter Siemiginowski (1660-1711). An interesting relic of the period is a work of the Italian painter Martino Altomonte (1657-1745), who was active in Warsaw since 1684. The painting depicting the election Sejm in 1687 on the fields of Wola near Warsaw presents a large group of equipages with vehicles typical of this period in the background. Those carriages brought deputies and senators of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as well as other dignitaries and diplomatic service to the Sejm session, but such vehicles drove around the streets of Warsaw at that time and it can be assumed that they included items produced by carriage builders from this city. There are a lot of iconographic and archival materials from the 17th and 18th centuries that have not been studied yet which could prove the existence of carriage building workshops in Warsaw but according to the brilliant memoirist of the period of the reign of the Saxon Wettin dynasty and of Stanislaus August, Reverend Jędrzej Kitowicz “domestic carriages, even the best ones, lost their high regard the moment their local origin was discovered.” As a result, carriages were often forged and domestic items were marked with signatures of foreign companies to make them easier to sell. But this practice was common in many European countries, in different crafts as well. The real history of carriage building in Warsaw began with the activity of Tomasz Michał Dangel (1742-1808), a saddler of German origin, who learned carriage building in London, came to Warsaw on foot in 1768 and set up his first workshop in Rymarska Street. After he had married Anna Zofia Krause, daughter of a 3. well-known carriage producer from Warsaw, he became an enterprising businessman who was able to take advantage of the favourable economic situation, the support of the king and eminent magnates to build one of the biggest carriage factories in Europe of the time. The workshops of the factory were located in Senatorska and Elektoralna Streets and in its prime they employed about three hundred workers. Thanks to the quality of his products, Tomasz Michał Dangel overcame the fashion for foreign carriages, as he built solid and durable items after the newest London fashion, and surpassed other significant producers in Warsaw, namely his father-in- law Krauze (Krause) and Szperl. He did not respect the guild system, looking for the most advantageous solutions in terms of employment, contacts and discounts. The golden age of the factory was in the 1780s, and it was crowned by the ennoblement of Tomasz Dangel in 1790. One of his major clients was the last king of Poland, Stanislaus August. It is evident from the fact that after the collapse of the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth one of the biggest debts of the royal court was the one to Dangel’s factory. The prosperity continued in the 1790s, Tomasz Dangel made investments, acquired land estates, and after the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth he even became a Prussian baron, although the activity of the factory itself was reduced almost four times. After a few decades of Dangel’s activity and his death in 1808, his widow sold the company to her cousin Jan Bogumił Krauze. Unfortunately, neither any item produced by Dangel nor drawings, designs and production documentation have been preserved up to the present day. Probably the only trace of this activity can be found in the superb cityscapes of Warsaw painted by the Venetian artist Bernardo Belotto called Canaletto (1721-1780), who spent the last and best period of his life in Warsaw as a court painter of King Stanislaus August. The collection of 23 cityscapes of Warsaw of the 1770s, preserved at the Royal Castle in Warsaw, is a wonderful record of the life and road traffic of the capital, described in many memoirs of travellers visiting Warsaw. Fryderyk Schultz from Livonia recalls: “... in Warsaw, you can see more carriages in motion than in most other European cities” and Antoni Magier says in his notes: “the number of carriages in Warsaw is infinite”. You could find there all kinds of fashionable vehicles: Berlins, dress charriots, désobligeantes, vis-à-vis, calashes, caravans, carts, wagons similar to those that could be seen at that time in the streets of London, , Berlin or Vienna. This quality of the Warsaw street is clearly visible in the paintings of Canaletto. When I took pains to count the vehicles and equipages presented in the foreground, middle ground and background of his paintings, I found almost 150 of them. Many of these representations, especially those from the foreground, are by no means mere staffage adding life to the cityscapes. The stately coaches, charriots and other equipages roaming the streets of Warsaw are possible to identify thanks to the livery colours, the coats of arms and the particular cityscapes they are situated in, presenting the greatest edifices of the capital. Among them, there are vehicles of the king and members of grand Polish aristocratic families. Most probably, they include products of Dangel, but in this respect, the identification is more difficult and maybe even impossible. One may only suppose that since the king and his family, the leading members of the aristocracy and government officials were clients of Tomasz Dangel, 4. their vehicles presented in the pictures may have originated in his workshop. The fall of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the partitions of its territory conducted by the neighbouring powers in 1795, and later the Napoleonic Wars brought about a serious economic crisis and a stagnation in many areas, including the craft. We have little material evidence from this period and both iconographic and archival sources are very scarce. One of the two vehicles produced in Warsaw in the first half of the 19th century and preserved in Polish collections is a small ladies’ chaise, a so-called cariole, of Princess Izabela Lubomirska, the owner of the Wilanów Palace, depicted on one of the presented pictures of Canaletto, and of the Łańcut Castle, the wife of Stanisław Lubomirski, Grand Marshal of the Crown. The carriage built around 1805 by a certain saddler from Warsaw named Bok is now an absolutely unique item, the pride of the carriage house in Łańcut Castle. Princess Lubomirska used it as a pleasure vehicle drawn by two ponies and drove it herself, accompanied by a child or a dwarf servant and a stable boy on the back seat. The carriage is a typical, fashionable product of that time, in terms of style as well as the structure of undercarriege and suspension, and the present appearance is a result of a renovation carried out in Vienna in 1904. It is possible that the original was the same yellow colour with black stripes, but such sand-coloured corduroy upholstery was unknown at the time the vehicle was produced. After the Congress in Vienna in 1815, Warsaw became the capital of the Kingdom of Poland in a personal union with the Russian Empire. Although the state covered a small area, it became the most thriving part of the Empire in terms of economy and Warsaw became the most industrialized center of the state. It is true of the development of carriage building in Warsaw as well. There appeared many new companies and new names, and traditions of renown, quality and durability, handed down from generation to generation, which characterised the producers from Warsaw throughout the 19th century. The first half of the century is not sufficiently known yet and requires an extensive study and archival research since, unfortunately, no specimens have been preserved. The craft still developed within the system of guilds. A guild was headed by the Guildmaster and the Assistant Guildmaster, the elite consisted of Master Craftsmen, i.e. Brothers, and the fundamental part of the organization was made up of journeymen, i.e. Companions. The lowest caste was made up of apprentices. The functioning of guilds was regulated by law in a clear way in 1817 and the system survived almost to the end of the 19th century. Producers of finished vehicles usually belonged to the Saddlers’ Guild, but wheelwrights, bodymakers, blacksmiths, varnishers as well as cartwrights and wainwrights were members of other guilds. The collections of drawings of the National Library in Warsaw, the National Museum, the University of Warsaw Library and other cultural institutions include materials that have not been fully studied yet. They may shed light on carriage production in the capital. Interesting carriage designs can be found in the files of the Wilanów collection of the Counts Potocki family as well as in the Counts Zamoyski Family File in the National Library, but most of the drawings are unsigned. They may include drawings made by producers from Warsaw. 5. Since the end of the 18th century, the Polish aristocracy undertook long journeys for educational purposes. The principal destinations were Italy, Switzerland and France and the itinerary included Austria and Germany, but Britain was popular as well. The travellers went on these so-called Grand Tours in their own vehicles, commissioned for the purpose along with the appropriate equipment. Carriage builders in Warsaw offered such vehicles, with a prevalence of travelling britzkas, half-closed but with a possibility of full closing by means of collapsible elements, provided with space for luggage and many trunks. More comfortable carriages for travelling were dormeuses, with possibility to accommodate for sleeping in the time of yourney. Moreover, there was a development of the network of hardened roads and post stations with horses for hire, also for private vehicles. At the same time, public transport developed. After his arrival in Warsaw in 1825, Piotr Antoni Steinkeller (1799-1854), an enterprising businessman, banker and industrialist, built a factory of stage coaches in the quarter of Solec and became the main supplier of vehicles for the postal service of the Kingdom of Poland as well as its shipping agent. Most probably, he also exported vehicles to . He gave his name to mail coaches, so-called Steinkellerkas. Mail coaches were build also by Jan Lier, Henryk Czopowski and Xsawery Laskowski. Interesting examples of the carriages used by Polish Post in local purposes were mail britzkas, designed for Genaral Post Office in 1845. Warsaw gradually became an important centre of production of horse-drawn vehicles with a large market for them in the Russian Empire. Throughout the 19th century, new carriage building companies appeared, from small workshops with a few employees to large manufactures, whose ambition was to produce vehicles equal in terms of quality, durability and style to those from London, Paris, Berlin or Vienna. Carriage builders from Warsaw closely studied the latest Western trends and technical solutions, participated in industrial expositions, collected all kinds of helpful materials and pattern books to “keep up to date.” In Warsaw, just as in London, whole streets came to be occupied by carriage builders: Leszno, Elektoralna, Erywańska, Królewska, Orla, Trębacka. “Izys Polska,” a national magazine devoted to science, skills, inventions and crafts, promoted Polish producers of all sorts of goods, including also carriage builders. It presented fashionable forms of carriages, technical inventions and new technologies. Examples of this include a drawing made by Hoffman, a carriage producer, published in 1820, presenting a form of kocz that was in fashion at that time. Similar vehicles can be seen in a painting by Józafat Ignacy Łukaszewicz (1789-1850), depicting a parade of Polish and Russian troops before Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, in Warsaw in 1822. The inhabitants of Warsaw attending the parade arrived in numerous vehicles, koczas, landaus, charriots, britzkas and droshkies, presenting also different types of equipage popular at the meeting point of Western and Eastern Europe. The equipage à la d’Aumont, popular in the West, co-occurred with the native Cracow style and the Russian duga. A Berlin coupé (called also as berlinette) of General Count Piotr Szembek, similar to the depicted carriages, can be found in the collection of the Museum in Łańcut. It is the second vehicle produced in Warsaw in the first half of the 19th century preserved 6. in Polish collections. Most probably, it was built in the 1820s in the manufacture of Jan Christian Petzold, a wheelwright from Warsaw, who left his signatures on the hubs of the wheels. This carriage has also signature on futchells stay “H.W” under crown, probably added by blacksmith or undercarriage maker. “Izys Polska” also presented various technical solutions such as Franciszek Sapalski’s automatic step or snow runners for a wheeled vehicle. Moreover, archives of great Polish families include many designs of ceremonial, everyday and travelling coaches and carriages. Many of them may have been produced in Warsaw. For example, there is a design of a pleasure barouche drawn by Jakob Műller, a carriage builder from Warsaw, who created this vehicle for the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna on the occasion of her visit to Warsaw in 1830. The barouche was commissioned by Count Aleksander Potocki from Wilanów, Great Equerry of the Crown, which is probably why the design has been preserved in the archives in Wilanów. The count ordered an identical barouche for his own use. Another preserved design made for Potocki is a coupé from 1823, commissioned on the occasion of his wedding to Izabella Mostowska, with three versions of the equipment: everyday, travelling and ceremonial ones. In the archive of the Counts Zamoyski, there are interesting designs of travelling carriages. Travelling coaches, britzkas and dormeuses were some of the most exclusive vehicles used for the Grand Tours which I have mentioned earlier. There were over 30 carriage builders recorded in Warsaw around 1850, mostly belonging to the Saddlers’ Guild, although 21 other bodymakers, making only wooden structures of vehicles, worked outside this guild, and there were also 26 master wheelwrights. The group was complemented by leatherworkers and varnishers, who also played an important part in the production of carriages, as well as by numerous blacksmiths. Luxury saddlers constituted a separate group, but also important for carriage building, as they produced exclusive state and travelling harnesses, saddles, whips, saddle and horse blankets as well as vehicle fittings and all kinds of items that travellers needed: trunks, suitcases, dressing cases, writing boxes etc. In the second half of the 19th century, the carriage building in Warsaw developed further, the number of companies rose constantly and the demand for vehicles increased as the mobility of the society grew higher. There appeared new types of carriages, coaches and britzkas, new structural solutions that made vehicles safer, more comfortable and efficient. A diary entry from 1849 mentions the first appearance of elliptical springs (so-called flat one) in Warsaw. Also production speed increased due to the introduction of new technologies and the cooperation of companies. More and more often, carriage builders used ready pieces produced in specialist metalworking or casting establishments. Only large companies could afford to produce their own patent axles, most of the carriage building workshops purchased them from reputed producers, mainly Russian, but also German. Some vehicles from Warsaw, even those produced by the most reputed establishments, used patent axles, most frequently manufactured by Ludwik Nobel, an excellent Russian company from Sankt Petersburg. 7. The initiative of the owners of carriage workshops and factories in the international arena was no longer limited to the search of production patterns, technical solutions and new production technologies. They also tried to participate i industrial expositions, even those of global significance, and to seek markets for their goods in Western Europe. Many of them won medals. The company of Józef Rentel, Guildmaster of the Saddlers’ Guild, a continuator of a carriage building company that had probably existed before at the same address, at 794a Elektoralna Street (later at 724 Leszno Street) became the most reputed establishment and received many awards. The company started its activity in 1850 and functioned without a break until the 1930s, amalgamating with the establishment of the Ostrowski Brothers and Józef Goliński. At the end, it produced car bodies built on imported chassis, mainly French and American. Józef Rentel was highly valued for the quality of his products, participated in many domestic and foreign industrial expositions, winning many medals and awards. He sold his vehicles also in Western Europe, but the principal importers of his products were the countries of the Russian Empire. His vehicles were popular with the Polish aristocracy and landed gentry as well. In the vicinity of Józef Rentel in Elektoralna Street, and later in Leszno Street, there were many companies, among which the establishment of Jan Stopczyk at 794c stood out. Stopczyk held the position of Assistant Guildmaster of the Saddlers’ Guild and was valued for the solidity and durability of his products. In 1867, he participated in the International Exposition in Paris. My collection in Tułowice includes the only preserved carriage produced by this company from around 1880, originating from the manor house in Glanów, my family home. The company functioned from 1852 to the 1890s. The best known company from Warsaw, the only one mentioned by Andres Furger in his work, was the factory of Władysław Romanowski. The origins of the company dated back to much older times of the factory of Tomasz Dangel – the old buildings of the establishment in Senatorska Street had been the first location of the activity of Ludwik Brühl, under whom Romanowski worked as a journeyman, master craftsman and workshop manager in the 1850s. He set up his own company around 1860 in Krakowskie Przedmieście Street and later became the owner of the factory of Ludwik Brühl, already situated at 3 Erywańska Street, which he extended considerably by taking over a reputed saddlery establishment of Klemens Hesse, which was renowned for very exclusive saddlery and leathercraft products, but also for carriage decoration. His son, Antoni Hesse, was also a well-known carriage builder, just as Aureliusz Brühl, son of the already mentioned Ludwik. The ultimate location of the company was in Królewska Street, where it reached the peak of its development with up to 100 employees in the 1870s and 1880s. The key to the success of Romanowski was his deep insight into the market, the prevailing trends and new technologies. He visited some of the most important factories in London, Paris and Vienna, and later participated in many expositions in Poland, the Russian Empire and Western Europe, winning many medals for the demonstrated products. His clients included the leading members of the Polish aristocracy. Traces of this can 8. be found in the inventories of the estates of the princely family of Radziwiłł and Ordynacja Zamoyska (Counts Zamoyski family fee tail), the greatest land property in Poland of that time. Unfortunately, only few items have survived. Stado Ogierów (Stallion Depot) in Białka has a big body brake that was used in one of the estates of the Counts Zamoyski family. The last owner of the factory was Klemens Starzyński, who was still active after World War I, when he also built car bodies. In Erywańska Street, next to the company of Romanowski, there was another large factory, the history of which had begun with Jan Lier in the 1830s and Karol Schiller in the 1850s. It was then successively owned by Władysław and Karol Sommer, father and son. They were followed by Józef Goliński, a very enterprising person, who moved the factory to 36/38 Leszno Street and later amalgamated it with a large factory of the Ostrowski Brothers from 11 Łucka Street, who had taken over the company of Józef Rentel from his successors. His marketing slogan in twentieth- century advertisements was: „the largest carriage factory in the country – Józef Goliński.” The factory had over one hundred employees. Another highly valued company was the factory of Adolf Hertel senior, initially at 725 Leszno Street, then at 16 Długa Street. In 1870, Wilhelm Hertel figured as the owner of the company, but there is no mention of him as a saddler or carriage builder. Maybe at that time, the activity of the factory was continued under Paweł Sękulski. He was followed by Marceli Hieropolitański, who focused on continuing the good tradition of production solidity and quality of his predecessors, expanding the company located already at a different place. Meanwhile, Adolf Hertel junior, grandson of the founder, successfully resumed the production of carriages at 29 Długa Street. He was a gifted person and drew designs himself, creating vehicles with a very elegant, harmonious and light form. In 1910, he celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of the company, mentioned by the press in Warsaw. The factory functioned in the interwar period, building car bodies just as most of the already mentioned establishments which had survived up until then. Unfortunately, no car with a body produced by a carriagebuilding company from Warsaw has been preserved. An interesting and slightly different activity was conducted by a company by the name of “Nowy Tattersall,” functioning at 11 Trębacka Street, established by a saddler, Władysław Cybulski, and an enterpreneur, Marian Konopnicki, at a place well-known for years for the production of carriages. It was there that Piotr Steinkeller and carriage factories of Karol Kożuchowski and Franciszek Kryński had functioned before. However, the new businessmen did not limit themselves to the production of carriages and harnesses. They set up a depot of luxury carriages for hire for special occasions, a great harness horse stable as well as a saddle horse stable and a manège. They also acted as agents in selling saddle and harness horses and imported horses from Britain – hunters for sportspeople, but also stallions for breeding in Poland. It was namely a time of a rapid development of equestrian sports, including pleasure driving. They entered their equipages in contests organised on the occasion of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Exhibitions and equestrian competitions in Warsaw, usually taking the top places. In 1901, they entered nine 9. equipages of different clases in a show during equestrian competitions in the Łazienki Royal Park, winning the three main prizes. The company opened a branch with stables and an indoor manège at 3 Litewska Street, which functioned up until World War II – the buildings, which still exist house now a well-known theatre in Warsaw. The list of carriage builders from Warsaw is very long, until now, I have gathered around 120 names of producers active since the 18th century. Many of these establishments were ephemeral, functioning only for several years, there were also numerous small workshops with a few employees. However, there were many serious establishments other than those I have discussed at some length. One should add at least some of them: Aleksander Liedtke, Franciszek Geyer, Jakub Hempel, Kristian Kloetze, Fabian Krupe, Antoni Korycki, Adolf Diermajer, Filip Loretz, Karol Wejssheit, Władysław Lubliński, Ksawery Laskowski, Henryk Czopowski, Leonard Wierzbicki, Franciszek Nassalski, Władysław Fejst, Jan Wasilewski and many others. We should not forget about the great factory of H. Wagner & Co., which specialised in the production of wheels for carriages, waggons and commercial vehicles. The formation of Polish craft, including carriage building, was greatly influenced, especially at the initial stage, by immigrants from Prussia, Saxony, Germany and Switzerland. Wandering craftsmen, who sought new locations for their activity, had come to Poland since the Middle Ages – that is why there are so many names that sound German among the producers of vehicles. Finally, one has to mention a large group of saddlery and leathercraft establishments, which naturally complemented the production of horse-drawn vehicles by providing it with all kinds of detachable accessories, such as harnesses, saddles, horse blankets, saddle blankets, travelling chests, dressing cases, umbrella baskets, cases and weapon holders as well as post horns, whips, gloves etc. The establishments that enjoyed the best reputation included the ones of the already mentioned Klemens Hesse, Karol Klingholtz, Henryk Greülich, J. Blumenberg, August Stoltzmann, Jan Ziemski, Józef Kuczmierowski, Ludwik Kazimierski and Sylwester Sieradzki. Since the 18th century, there had been several dozen functioning establishments of this kind, not counting regular leathercraft establishments. Unfortunately, the number of preserved vehicles produced in Warsaw is scarce in Polish collections, probably amounting to several dozen. During the almost 40 years of collecting vehicles, though only those related to the tradition of the Polish manor, I have managed to collect 7 items, which is the greatest number of such items gathered in one place. This group is complemented by four harness sets for a pair of horses and several trifles, but I have managed to collect a bit of archive material and advertisements. I think that given the growing interest in collecting carriages and carriage-driving sport in Poland, there is a chance of further broadening the knowledge of Polish carriage building. ! ! Andrzej Novák-Zempliński (translated by Archeo-Logos: Joanna Dżdża & Grzegorz Żabiński)