Middle Age Stoves

Exhibition of tile stoves in Municipal museum of Ústí nad Labem on 29. 6. - 14. 10. 2018 and Regional Museum in Most (Czech republic) on 1 December 2017 to 31 May 2018. The features and aesthetics of the artistic design of tile stoves have been and are a permanent source of experience. The WORLD OF TILE STOVES exhibition presents this experience over centuries and thus introduces a selection of the most interesting museums and monument institutions, especially from the Ústí nad Labem Region. The exhibition presents an unusually large set of archaeological findings, fragments and whole stove bodies, often supplemented by other objects from museum collections not only from Bohemia, but also from Saxony. // Die Eigenschaften und Ästhetik der bildkünstlerischen Gestaltung der Kachelöfen waren und sind auch weiterhin ein dauerhaftes Erlebnis. Die Ausstellung DIE WELT DER KACHELÖFEN vermittelt dieses Erlebnis quer durch die Jahrhunderte und stellt so eine Auswahl aus dem Interessantesten dar, was die Museen und Dekmalinstitutionen insbesondere aus der Region Ústí anbieten können. Die Ausstellung präsentiert eine ungewöhnlich umfangreiche Gesamtheit archäologischer Funde, Fragmente sowie kompletter Ofenkörper, die um weitere Objekte der Museumssammlungen nicht nur aus Böhmne, sondern auch aus Sachsen, ergänzt ist.

Stoves were constructed for the purpose of interior heating. However, tiles used in their construction provided space which might have been used either for purely decorative purposes or as a carrier of important issues – reflecting ideas professed by owners of particular stoves or a social class they be- longed to. Ceramic stoves decorated with coats of arms were meant to emphasise the importance and origin of people living in the building. Heraldic ornamentation, popular since the fifteenth century, continued to be in use also in Renaissance decorations. Coats of arms were put directly on a panel or on a shield, held by a winged angel since the beginning of the sixteenth century, and by a young man or woman since the mid-sixteenth century. The stove tiles of the kind have been known from numerous manor houses and palaces, and were used to decorate various parts of a stove – corners of the main box, friezes or tops.
Eight tiles bearing an image of a shield-bearer – whole ones or their indicative fragments – were produced in the course of excavations carried out at Ostrów Tumski, Poznań (1946, 1953–54, 2006 up  to now). All found in the northern part of the island, the cathedral area, they had been used in the con- struction of heaters in buildings owned by ecclesiastical dignitaries (the bishop’s seat, Psaltery, Lubrań- ski’s Academy, canonries). The tiles were discovered in disturbed layers, dating from the 18th to 20th century. Six of them bear images of the coats of arms: OdrowąŜ/Ogończyk, Łodzia, Korzbok, God- ziemba, Nałęcz, and the crest of the city of Gdańsk. On two of them there are significant fragments of a shield-bearer: the head and the body. They represent the group of middle top tiles, with a rectangu- lar/almost square panel and a body of a shield-bearer protruding over the edge. The tiles, all covered with coloured glazing, differ in terms of carefulness of their manufacturing. In the centre of the panel there is a semi-circular shield with the above mentioned coats of arms, held by a young man wearing Renaissance clothes and surrounded by the arabesque. It seems impossible to decide whether the tiles come from one stove and what it might have been like. Identical tiles had been hitherto found in differ- ent parts of Poznań (near the mill in Bogdanka, in the settlement site of St. Gothard, Św. Wojciech Street). The latter seems a possible location of their manufacture, with remnants of pottery workshops discovered there.
The coats of arms pictured on the tiles may be referred to particular noble houses and persons as- sociated with the then Wielkopolska: bishops and members of the local administration – voivodes, and starostas. The people using the Łodzia coat of arms included the bishops of Poznań – Andrzej of Bnin and Uriel Górka, as well as a the voivod of Poznań – Łukasz Górka, and the bishop of Cuiavia (Ku- jawy) Piotr of Bnin. The Korcbok (Korzbok) coat of arms was used by a number of noble houses of Wielkopolska: the Korzbok family, the Łącki family, the Niesiołowski family, the Rybieński family,  the Stryjkowski family, the Tuchołek family and the Zawadzki family, including a canon of Poznań – Jan Kamieniecki. The Godziemba coat of arms belonged to bishop Jan Lubrański, an important founder and constructor of Ostrów Tumski. The Nałęcz coat of arms might have been connected to Mirosław of Brudzew, a provost of Gniezno and a canon of Poznań, or Andrzej Czarnkowski, a bishop of Poznań. The Ogończyk/OdrowąŜ coat of arms of (not possible to distinguish without a jewel) might be linked to Mikołaj of Kutno, a starost of Wielkopolska (Ogończyk) or Jan of Sprowa, an archbishop of Gniezno (OdrowąŜ). The listed coats of arms are also present on the foundation and grave slabs at Ostrów Tum- ski and the Cathedral of Poznań.

The study is conceived as a complex evaluation of a very large volume of debris from a Gothic stove found in 1997 during an archaeological excavation of the château in Pardubice. The stove was destroyed likely in a fire at the turn of the 16 th century. The debris is composed mostly of panel and vessel tiles in the standard formal range. Stove construction elements are also represented in large numbers, especially panels of several formal and size formats. The assemblage of ceramic panels is unique from a pair of perspectives (temporarily), even on an international scale. It is also unparalleled with respect to the overall quantity and formal variety. However, evidence for a more detailed functional interpretation of the panels is missing for now. The evaluation of the find is concluded with a discussion on the social context. However, an answer to the key question as to whether the social standing of the noble family was projected into the appearance of the stove cannot be positively formulated, though it seems rather unlikely.

Studie byla publikována roku 1990 v časopise ,,Výběr - z prací členů historického spolku při Jihočeském muzeu v Českých Budějovicích" ( ročník 27, číslo 4) / The study published in 1990 in the journal ,,Výběr - from the works of members of the Historical Society at the South Bohemian Museum in České Budějovice (Volume 27, Number 4)".