RKD STUDIES

Entirely in accordance with the mandate of the mentioned competition, Gerson also mentioned Polish artists – with or without archival evidence – who had worked in the Low Countries. Here too a few figures remained unmentioned, such as the Danzig engraver Aegidius Dickmann (1591-?) [1], who travelled to The Netherlands at the expense of the administration of his native city, and who was in Utrecht in 1624.¹ Bartholomäus Miltwitz (c. 1590-1656) worked in Danzig for the greater part of his life [2], but he resided in Franeker in 1606. On 18 November of that year he formally registered his intention to marry Geertruyd Arnouts of s’Hertogenbosch (Bredius annotations, RKD). He is also thought to have spent some time in the Northern Netherlands during the Swedish-Polish war (1626-1629).

In his German chapter Gerson did mention the engraver, calligrapher and art agent Elias Noski (c. 1623-1668), of whom it was recently discovered that he spent the greater part of his life in Danzig.² In the case of the painter Jakob Heisse, who is known only from the archives and who was certainly active in Danzig between 1654 and 1665, having for some time lived in Amsterdam before that, it is not clear whether he was of Polish or Dutch origin.³ The Polish painter Gallus Kittner (1655-1715) is said to have been active in Amsterdam for three years.⁴ Jan Hendricksz. Tim (-1695) [3], a cartographer and employee of the East India Company who was probably born in Danzig, was – other than in remote climes – regularly to be encountered in Amsterdam. He perished on the North Sea with a ship named ‘Koning William’.⁵ Without a doubt even more painters and draftsmen whose work has rarely survived the passing of centuries are to be found in socio-economic studies that incorporate new archival research.

1
Aegidius Dickmann published by Frederik de Wit
View of Gdańsk, dated 1625
paper, etching (printing process), 3rd state ? x ? mm
lower left : AED fec. Anno 1625
Amsterdam, Rijksprentenkabinet, inv./cat.nr. RP-P-1901-A-22328