portrait by Hans von Aachen, ca. 1600/1603, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna (Inv. 1124)
Rudolf II and the History of Games
by Barbara Holländer
presented at the 18th CCI World Congress, Prague April 2018
In the late 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, Prague was the residence of Emperor Rudolf II, one of the most famous Collectors of the House of Habsburg. Wenzel Hollar's etching of the town (from 1636 (1) shows from right to left the Old Town (Staré Mesto), the Lesser Town (Kleinseite, Malá Strana) linked by the Charles Bridge (Karlsbrücke ) and dominated by the Prague Castle with the St. Vitus Cathedral, the Hradschin.
Who was Rudolf II, and why was Prague his residence? He came from the the Habsburg family which reached the height of its powers under Charles V. (1500-1558).During his lifetime Northern Europe was in a turmoil of religious wars between Catholics and Protestants. Chess Collectors know of the Emperor's victory at Mühlberg in 1547, where Duke Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous (der Großmütige), one of the protestant leaders, was arrested and brought to Brussels, where he played chess with his Spanish guardian. In 1521, Charles installed his brother Ferdinand (1503-1564 ) as co-ruler of Austria and the Eastern parts of the Reich. Charles kept his title of Emperor, but resigned one by one his numerous Spanish and Italian titles to his son Philipp II, King of Spain, until he retired to the Spanish convent of Yuste where he died in 1558.
Ferdinand I.
His brother Ferdinand now followed him on the imperial throne. Ferdinand mostly lived in Vienna where he began to centralize the Habsburg treasures and collections, partly in his private rooms in the Castle (the “Burg”). We hear of presentations and discussions of spectacular pieces during dinner-time, such as the famous pictures by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (3). But Ferdinand was, nevertheless, also present in Prague. He enlarged the castle, surrounding its area by beautiful gardens and built the Lusthaus (a maison de plaisance or Belvedere ) for his wife Anna Jagiello. Anna Jagiello was the heiress of Bohemia and Hungary which meant that in marrying Ferdinand she enlarged the Habsburg properties considerably, making the emperor's periodical stay in Prague necessary.
His brother Ferdinand now followed him on the imperial throne. Ferdinand mostly lived in Vienna where he began to centralize the Habsburg treasures and collections, partly in his private rooms in the Castle (the “Burg”). We hear of presentations and discussions of spectacular pieces during dinner-time, such as the famous pictures by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (3). But Ferdinand was, nevertheless, also present in Prague. He enlarged the castle, surrounding its area by beautiful gardens and built the Lusthaus (a maison de plaisance or Belvedere ) for his wife Anna Jagiello. Anna Jagiello was the heiress of Bohemia and Hungary which meant that in marrying Ferdinand she enlarged the Habsburg properties considerably, making the emperor's periodical stay in Prague necessary.
Ferdinand's supreme backgammon board
One of Ferdinand's treasures, well known to those who have visited the Kunstkammer in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, was the so-called Brettspiel für den Langen Puff (medieval backgammon), made by Hans Kels and Jörg Breu, dated 1537 in Kaufbeuren near Augsburg.(3) As it is one of the most important so-called “princely presents” in the form of a game, I will repeat what has to be known about it. It consists of the case with a board for “backgammon” on the inside, and includes 32 gaming pieces. But its use as a game board is only the basic level of its meaning. If one opens the case to look on both outsides, one finds no hint to the game board inside, but a veritable imperial program in a strictly geometric outlay: A central medallion with the Emperor Charles V. on horseback is surrounded by four smaller ones, showing his immediate predecessors: Albrecht, father of Friedrich III., himself father of Maximilian I., whose son Philipp was Charles's father. Philipp was of no great importance as a ruler, but he was married to Juana of Castile and for a rather short time King of Castile; he stands for the beginning of the Spanish-Habsburg domination of the greater part of Europe. Other symbols reinforce this constellation: The two-headed the Imperial Eagle (Reichsadler), the uniting chain of the Golden Fleece, the two columns and their motto Plus Ultra, indicating that the House of Habsburg had already left the limits of the “Columns of Hercules” and gone overseas. The medallions in the four corners represent the roman emperors Cesar, Augustus, Trajanus and Constantinus and show Charles's background as Roman Emperor. The surrounding border shows coats of arms of the Habsburg properties in the Southern and Western areas, while the apples allude to the golden apples of the Hesperides which guarantied immortality.
The back of the case is dedicated to Ferdinand, at the time King of the Eastern part of the Empire, but not yet Emperor. (4) Like Charles he is on horseback, surrounded by his nearest relatives. The smaller medallions in the four corners show Eastern rulers, the coats of arms point to the Eastern properties of the Habsburgs. The one-headed eagle indicates Ferdinand's kingdom, the A in the letters FA his union with Anna Jagiello.
One of Ferdinand's treasures, well known to those who have visited the Kunstkammer in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, was the so-called Brettspiel für den Langen Puff (medieval backgammon), made by Hans Kels and Jörg Breu, dated 1537 in Kaufbeuren near Augsburg.(3) As it is one of the most important so-called “princely presents” in the form of a game, I will repeat what has to be known about it. It consists of the case with a board for “backgammon” on the inside, and includes 32 gaming pieces. But its use as a game board is only the basic level of its meaning. If one opens the case to look on both outsides, one finds no hint to the game board inside, but a veritable imperial program in a strictly geometric outlay: A central medallion with the Emperor Charles V. on horseback is surrounded by four smaller ones, showing his immediate predecessors: Albrecht, father of Friedrich III., himself father of Maximilian I., whose son Philipp was Charles's father. Philipp was of no great importance as a ruler, but he was married to Juana of Castile and for a rather short time King of Castile; he stands for the beginning of the Spanish-Habsburg domination of the greater part of Europe. Other symbols reinforce this constellation: The two-headed the Imperial Eagle (Reichsadler), the uniting chain of the Golden Fleece, the two columns and their motto Plus Ultra, indicating that the House of Habsburg had already left the limits of the “Columns of Hercules” and gone overseas. The medallions in the four corners represent the roman emperors Cesar, Augustus, Trajanus and Constantinus and show Charles's background as Roman Emperor. The surrounding border shows coats of arms of the Habsburg properties in the Southern and Western areas, while the apples allude to the golden apples of the Hesperides which guarantied immortality.
The back of the case is dedicated to Ferdinand, at the time King of the Eastern part of the Empire, but not yet Emperor. (4) Like Charles he is on horseback, surrounded by his nearest relatives. The smaller medallions in the four corners show Eastern rulers, the coats of arms point to the Eastern properties of the Habsburgs. The one-headed eagle indicates Ferdinand's kingdom, the A in the letters FA his union with Anna Jagiello.
The inner gaming plan is also surrounded by borders with animals and plants and medallions representing ancient legends. These legends connect the case with the gaming pieces showing scenes from Ovid and other ancient authors, mostly tales of famous lovers or famous adversaries.This finely carved object represents, as in a nutshell, the way the Habsburgs looked at themselves. The square of the game board is an old abbreviation of the whole world. To fill this square with Habsburg symbols points to the dictum that in their realm the sun never sets. It most certainly could have been also an object of discussion at Ferdinand' s dinner-table.
Ferdinand II of Tyrol
In 1547 Ferdinand's and Anna's second son, Ferdinand II of Tyrol (1529-1595), then 18 years old, came to Prague as his father's representative.Though very young for his task, it seems that he got on well with the local Bohemian nobility. Since 1556 he lived in a nearby castle with his (unrecognized) wife Philippine Welser from Augsburg and his two children. There he began his life as a collector. When he left Prague for Innsbruck after at the death of his father, a transport of about 35 tons of weapons and harnesses got on its way. Though it is not sure that it contained other goods, such as pictures and artifacts of all sorts, we may nevertheless assume that he had already been interested in all those objects which he assembled in his Kunst- und Wunderkammer in Ambras castle near Innsbruck over the following years.
Ferdinand II of Tyrol
In 1547 Ferdinand's and Anna's second son, Ferdinand II of Tyrol (1529-1595), then 18 years old, came to Prague as his father's representative.Though very young for his task, it seems that he got on well with the local Bohemian nobility. Since 1556 he lived in a nearby castle with his (unrecognized) wife Philippine Welser from Augsburg and his two children. There he began his life as a collector. When he left Prague for Innsbruck after at the death of his father, a transport of about 35 tons of weapons and harnesses got on its way. Though it is not sure that it contained other goods, such as pictures and artifacts of all sorts, we may nevertheless assume that he had already been interested in all those objects which he assembled in his Kunst- und Wunderkammer in Ambras castle near Innsbruck over the following years.
Chess Collectors know about his remarkable collection of game boards from the 1998 Vienna catalogue, especially the Great Chess with chessmen by an unknown artisan, the board with gaming pieces by Hans Repfl , the intarsia board with silver and gilt pieces from Augsburg or Nuremberg , the board from Upper Italy, the “glass-board” and that of slate from Solnhofen . It seems he ordered some of them himself. They represent of his major interests: that for materials on the one hand – for instance he installed a glass-manufacture in Innsbruck – and that for genealogy, portraits and armour. We should keep these gaming boards and their pieces in mind as a sort of survey of the possible variations of very precious objects belonging to the Kunstkammern.
Maximilian II.
Ferdinand's elder brother Maximilian II. (1527-1576) followed their father (Emperor Ferdinand I.) on the imperial throne. Maximilian mostly stayed in Vienna, where he continued to enlarge his father's collections of coins, medals and books by his own predilections, antique and Italian sculptures of his time. In Prague, he built, in addition to the Belvedere, more locations of game and play, for instance a ball house in the recreation grounds surrounding the castle. I am not able to show any board game that is associated with his name, but that does not mean that there were none.
Rudolf II.
With Maximilians first-born son we approach the person whom we may consider as the most famous collector of his time, Rudolf II. Why was Prague his residence? Born in Vienna in 1552, Rudolf spent about seven years (from 1563 to 1571) at the Spanish court of his uncle Philipp II. On his return to Vienna, he became King of Hungary in 1572, King of Bohemia and of Germany in 1575 and finally, after the death of his father Maximilian II, was elected Emperor in 1576. His reign ended when he died in 1612. His father Maximilian had consented to the demand of the Bohemian estates that in being elected Bohemian king, Rudolf should learn the Czech language and stay in Prague, so after his election as Roman Emperor Rudolf finally made Prague his official residence. Rudolf is generally described as a complicated character. His multiple interests in sciences – mathematics, astronomy and natural history – and in the arts attracted scientists and artists to his court.
Jost Bürgi and Johannes Kepler and the painters Bartholomäus Spranger and Hans von Aachen are some of the most famous names. Sciences, however, included what we now call occult subjects – astrology and magic (magia naturalis) – and so making horoscopes was one of Kepler's tasks at the imperial court. Alchemists sought the stone of wisdom and adventurers promised to make gold. This, in short, is the background of this emperor, who, in his later years, was regarded as insane by his own family, not because of his cultural predilections, but because of his political inefficiency. He had, in the end, to give up all reigning activities in favour of his younger brother Matthias.
Rudolf's collection
What do we know about Rudolf's collections? In 1636, Lord Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, visited Prague, together with William Crowne and the Artist Wenzel Hollar( 11). After having seen the state-rooms, they entered the Kunstkammer and Crowne noted what they found there: In the first of four rooms 20 cupboards contained objects of coral, china, pearls, bronze plates with incisions, mathematical instruments, amber bowls , receptacles of agate, gold and crystal, minerals, stone mosaics, ivory objects and a unicorn (a narwal tooth) of about one meter, metal and bronze works, astronomical instruments and exotica. In the next rooms, the cupboards contained pictures, “curiosa” and naturalia. The last room was the library. This description proves that 25 years after Rudolf's death, the objects left in Prague were a "most honorable collection", as noted Crowne,(9) although it had been decimated by Rudolf's successors Matthias and Ferdinand II who had already transported a considerable part of the collection to Vienna, where Ferdinand III (1608-1657) kept it in new rooms in the Imperial Palace.
What chess collectors will be curious about are most certainly the “ivory objects”. And we hear from Eliška Fučikova that «In the year 1600 Georg Wecker, the courtly turner of the elector of Saxony installed in the castle a turner's workshop for works on ivory, wood and jasper. During the last years of Rudolf's life Wecker's son Hans worked there and made several receptacles, boxes and “useless trifles”.
Ferdinand's elder brother Maximilian II. (1527-1576) followed their father (Emperor Ferdinand I.) on the imperial throne. Maximilian mostly stayed in Vienna, where he continued to enlarge his father's collections of coins, medals and books by his own predilections, antique and Italian sculptures of his time. In Prague, he built, in addition to the Belvedere, more locations of game and play, for instance a ball house in the recreation grounds surrounding the castle. I am not able to show any board game that is associated with his name, but that does not mean that there were none.
Rudolf II.
With Maximilians first-born son we approach the person whom we may consider as the most famous collector of his time, Rudolf II. Why was Prague his residence? Born in Vienna in 1552, Rudolf spent about seven years (from 1563 to 1571) at the Spanish court of his uncle Philipp II. On his return to Vienna, he became King of Hungary in 1572, King of Bohemia and of Germany in 1575 and finally, after the death of his father Maximilian II, was elected Emperor in 1576. His reign ended when he died in 1612. His father Maximilian had consented to the demand of the Bohemian estates that in being elected Bohemian king, Rudolf should learn the Czech language and stay in Prague, so after his election as Roman Emperor Rudolf finally made Prague his official residence. Rudolf is generally described as a complicated character. His multiple interests in sciences – mathematics, astronomy and natural history – and in the arts attracted scientists and artists to his court.
Jost Bürgi and Johannes Kepler and the painters Bartholomäus Spranger and Hans von Aachen are some of the most famous names. Sciences, however, included what we now call occult subjects – astrology and magic (magia naturalis) – and so making horoscopes was one of Kepler's tasks at the imperial court. Alchemists sought the stone of wisdom and adventurers promised to make gold. This, in short, is the background of this emperor, who, in his later years, was regarded as insane by his own family, not because of his cultural predilections, but because of his political inefficiency. He had, in the end, to give up all reigning activities in favour of his younger brother Matthias.
Rudolf's collection
What do we know about Rudolf's collections? In 1636, Lord Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, visited Prague, together with William Crowne and the Artist Wenzel Hollar( 11). After having seen the state-rooms, they entered the Kunstkammer and Crowne noted what they found there: In the first of four rooms 20 cupboards contained objects of coral, china, pearls, bronze plates with incisions, mathematical instruments, amber bowls , receptacles of agate, gold and crystal, minerals, stone mosaics, ivory objects and a unicorn (a narwal tooth) of about one meter, metal and bronze works, astronomical instruments and exotica. In the next rooms, the cupboards contained pictures, “curiosa” and naturalia. The last room was the library. This description proves that 25 years after Rudolf's death, the objects left in Prague were a "most honorable collection", as noted Crowne,(9) although it had been decimated by Rudolf's successors Matthias and Ferdinand II who had already transported a considerable part of the collection to Vienna, where Ferdinand III (1608-1657) kept it in new rooms in the Imperial Palace.
What chess collectors will be curious about are most certainly the “ivory objects”. And we hear from Eliška Fučikova that «In the year 1600 Georg Wecker, the courtly turner of the elector of Saxony installed in the castle a turner's workshop for works on ivory, wood and jasper. During the last years of Rudolf's life Wecker's son Hans worked there and made several receptacles, boxes and “useless trifles”.
Mysteries
What might these “useless trifles” have been? There is a complicated receptacle1 serving as “pharmacy” attributed to Hans Wecker and dated 1610 . But have there been any chessboards, cases for game boards or chessmen? Crowne and the Earl of Arundel may not have been interested in games so that they were not mentioned? We are told by Philipp Hainhofer – the well-known agent of Selenus (12) that when he visited Augsburg, he bought pictures of old masters, and in Nuremberg he bought the library of Willibald Pirckheimer, Albrecht Dürer's friend. Or had – in 1636 – the gaming objects already disappeared from the Rudolfinian collection? We hear of objects that were sold to pay Rudolf's debts: Lots of questions which are difficult to answer.There are, however, apart from the turner's workshop, other indications for gaming objects in Rudolf's Kunstkammer. I mean an inventory of the Kunstkammer made in 1607 to 1611 (13) . It includes 10 items of gaming material, but none of them has been identified, as we are told by the editor of the inventory. So we must try our imagination and search for analogies. Let us begin with the inventory's “high writing table”.
Nr. 2401: "a high writing table of ebony, the inner parts inlaid with silver and engraved, on its top a pharmacy and and barber objects, combs, brushes, scissors made of silver, on its bottom a board game and chess pieces, and also writing materials" The term “writing table” does not simply mean a desk top, but is very often used for a "Kunst- or Kabinett-Schrank" , a complicated cabinet or chassis for multiple interiors as drawers, boxes and secret compartments, containing all sorts of useful, but also of curious things like exotic nuts or shells and so on. Keep in mind the pharmacy, the barber's objects, combs, brushes, scissors, the board game with pieces and the writing material.
One of the most complicated cabinets, made in Augsburg about 1610, is known as the Pommeranian Cabinet (Pommerscher Kunstschrank) (14) . It was commissioned by the Duke of Pommerania, a near relative of Selenus. Philipp Hainhofer, the renowned agent for such objects, had it made for him. The “chassis” was destroyed at the end of world war II, but its contents have been preserved and are now in the Kunstgewerbe-Museum in Berlin. There we find – as in Rudolf's inventory quoted before – a pharmacy ), barber tools , combs, brushes and scissors ), writing materials , game boards and gaming pieces and lots of other interesting things which are not mentioned in Rudolf's inventory. It is therefore possible that Rudolf's “table” was a smaller version of the Kunstschrank in ebony and silver inlays. This points to case makers in Augsburg, who began working on this combination in the latter 16th century. The great ebony cases known from the beginning of the 17th century and especially from Hainhofer's undertaking are more sumptuous, showing not only silver inlays but combinations of sculptures and ornaments, fixed on the ebony corpus. Apart from the Pommeranian Cabinet, the Walbaum cabinet dated between 1600 and 1610 , also features cast and embossed ornaments. (15) The cabinet mentioned in the Prague inventory might be slightly earlier. In any case, we must imagine an ebony case with engraved silver ornaments as we know them from various game boards of the Hainhofer production (16).
What might these “useless trifles” have been? There is a complicated receptacle1 serving as “pharmacy” attributed to Hans Wecker and dated 1610 . But have there been any chessboards, cases for game boards or chessmen? Crowne and the Earl of Arundel may not have been interested in games so that they were not mentioned? We are told by Philipp Hainhofer – the well-known agent of Selenus (12) that when he visited Augsburg, he bought pictures of old masters, and in Nuremberg he bought the library of Willibald Pirckheimer, Albrecht Dürer's friend. Or had – in 1636 – the gaming objects already disappeared from the Rudolfinian collection? We hear of objects that were sold to pay Rudolf's debts: Lots of questions which are difficult to answer.There are, however, apart from the turner's workshop, other indications for gaming objects in Rudolf's Kunstkammer. I mean an inventory of the Kunstkammer made in 1607 to 1611 (13) . It includes 10 items of gaming material, but none of them has been identified, as we are told by the editor of the inventory. So we must try our imagination and search for analogies. Let us begin with the inventory's “high writing table”.
Nr. 2401: "a high writing table of ebony, the inner parts inlaid with silver and engraved, on its top a pharmacy and and barber objects, combs, brushes, scissors made of silver, on its bottom a board game and chess pieces, and also writing materials" The term “writing table” does not simply mean a desk top, but is very often used for a "Kunst- or Kabinett-Schrank" , a complicated cabinet or chassis for multiple interiors as drawers, boxes and secret compartments, containing all sorts of useful, but also of curious things like exotic nuts or shells and so on. Keep in mind the pharmacy, the barber's objects, combs, brushes, scissors, the board game with pieces and the writing material.
One of the most complicated cabinets, made in Augsburg about 1610, is known as the Pommeranian Cabinet (Pommerscher Kunstschrank) (14) . It was commissioned by the Duke of Pommerania, a near relative of Selenus. Philipp Hainhofer, the renowned agent for such objects, had it made for him. The “chassis” was destroyed at the end of world war II, but its contents have been preserved and are now in the Kunstgewerbe-Museum in Berlin. There we find – as in Rudolf's inventory quoted before – a pharmacy ), barber tools , combs, brushes and scissors ), writing materials , game boards and gaming pieces and lots of other interesting things which are not mentioned in Rudolf's inventory. It is therefore possible that Rudolf's “table” was a smaller version of the Kunstschrank in ebony and silver inlays. This points to case makers in Augsburg, who began working on this combination in the latter 16th century. The great ebony cases known from the beginning of the 17th century and especially from Hainhofer's undertaking are more sumptuous, showing not only silver inlays but combinations of sculptures and ornaments, fixed on the ebony corpus. Apart from the Pommeranian Cabinet, the Walbaum cabinet dated between 1600 and 1610 , also features cast and embossed ornaments. (15) The cabinet mentioned in the Prague inventory might be slightly earlier. In any case, we must imagine an ebony case with engraved silver ornaments as we know them from various game boards of the Hainhofer production (16).
These comparisons may seem speculative, but connections between the imperial court and Augsburg are, by no means, improbable. For instance, a near relative of Hainhofer, Melchior Hainhofer, is said to have been Rudolf's “Cammerrath” or private counsellor in 1610. At the bottom” of the Rudolfinian cabinet, a game board with “Schachdockhen” for the game of chess (tocke or docke means “doll” in contemporary German) is mentioned. May we assume that “Dockhen”, were figurative pieces, like the finely carved ones from the Pommersche Kunstschrank (17) or those from the Selenus Games in Braunschweig in a special case made for them by Ulrich Baumgartner - which is nearly unknown to chess collectors? (18) As there are only very few figurative pieces left from this period, we cannot be sure. In any case, there are three known ensembles of chess pieces done by the eminent Christoph Angermair, one for the Pommeranian Cabinet, one for the Selenus case and one curious example – as to its board – in St. Petersburg. Nobody knows, when and why the latter game got there. Let us not speculate, but what if the inventory specimen was, after the death of Rudolf, sold or stolen and resold until it came to St. Petersburg? These stories are not without a certain plausibility. The “dolls”, however, could also have been turned pieces, for the term “dockhen” was equally used for small round or cylindric objects. In this case we would have to assume they were abstract turned pieces.
More inventory
Now let us turn to other entries of the inventory, where “Indian” boards are mentioned - for example Nr.640: " another beautiful big Indian board of mother of pearl; on the side of the chessboard inlaid by mother of pearl and tortoise shells in a nice guilded leather case".
This short entry will remind us of a private collection board shown in the 1998 exhibition in Vienna (19) of exactly the same making (Ill. 28). Another similar one was described by Sigrid Sangl in 1991. We may suppose that they were part of the growing imports from the Far East of which Rudolf's “Indian board game” was one.Or Nr. 641: "one precious board of amber, gold enameled and with an ivory border. The pieces from yellow and white amber are contained in a separate round receptacle, also wholly from amber" . Or finally Nr. 1044: " a beautiful and large board with pieces, of amber, ivory and guilded ornaments, in a red leather case with guilded ornaments, accompanied by a painted box containing the dolls (the chess pieces), also of amber, for the game of chess". These two entries are full of indications which can be associated with known objects. We hear of the colours of amber, yellow and white (that means also transparent and opaque), to distinguish the pieces and the chess squares and of the use of ivory, and we may assume, that “gold ameliert” means a technique that Georg Laue (20) now calls “églomisé”, though the process meant by this technique generally is applied to glass. Gold ameliert means, as he explains in another entry, that a thin layer of gold is applied on a piece of translucent amber and engraved with , for instance, ornaments or miniature portraits. The amber then serves as cover of the incision.(21)The entries also show the preciosity of the cases or boxes. For a comparison with a known amber board, though without pieces, we must move to the Museum in Kassel , were we find a board for chess and merels (22) The description speaks of opaque and transparent amber, but we recognize the portraits in the dark squares. There are more of these boards in several collections, the Kassel one is seemingly dated too early, but around 1600 and 1610 the existence of other objects can be assumed. Laue dates a very similar one in his catalog to 1616.
More inventory
Now let us turn to other entries of the inventory, where “Indian” boards are mentioned - for example Nr.640: " another beautiful big Indian board of mother of pearl; on the side of the chessboard inlaid by mother of pearl and tortoise shells in a nice guilded leather case".
This short entry will remind us of a private collection board shown in the 1998 exhibition in Vienna (19) of exactly the same making (Ill. 28). Another similar one was described by Sigrid Sangl in 1991. We may suppose that they were part of the growing imports from the Far East of which Rudolf's “Indian board game” was one.Or Nr. 641: "one precious board of amber, gold enameled and with an ivory border. The pieces from yellow and white amber are contained in a separate round receptacle, also wholly from amber" . Or finally Nr. 1044: " a beautiful and large board with pieces, of amber, ivory and guilded ornaments, in a red leather case with guilded ornaments, accompanied by a painted box containing the dolls (the chess pieces), also of amber, for the game of chess". These two entries are full of indications which can be associated with known objects. We hear of the colours of amber, yellow and white (that means also transparent and opaque), to distinguish the pieces and the chess squares and of the use of ivory, and we may assume, that “gold ameliert” means a technique that Georg Laue (20) now calls “églomisé”, though the process meant by this technique generally is applied to glass. Gold ameliert means, as he explains in another entry, that a thin layer of gold is applied on a piece of translucent amber and engraved with , for instance, ornaments or miniature portraits. The amber then serves as cover of the incision.(21)The entries also show the preciosity of the cases or boxes. For a comparison with a known amber board, though without pieces, we must move to the Museum in Kassel , were we find a board for chess and merels (22) The description speaks of opaque and transparent amber, but we recognize the portraits in the dark squares. There are more of these boards in several collections, the Kassel one is seemingly dated too early, but around 1600 and 1610 the existence of other objects can be assumed. Laue dates a very similar one in his catalog to 1616.
History and Rudolf's estate
In the same year Duke August the Younger (Selenus for us), after hearing of the imminent arrival of his own Hainhofer case including the boards and the Angermair pieces, thought of presenting this precious object together with his book on chess to Rudolf's successor, the Emperor Mathias .(23) He asks himself and his friend Hainhofer if “it would be a good idea to present it together with a nicely bound and illuminated exemplaire of his book to his imperial Majesty?” Selenus had heard, however, that Mathias was not as keen on collecting beautiful things as Rudolph, and so he fears to send it to a place where it could be “thrown behind a door” - that is, neglected – and that it would be better to keep it to himself, “for my money”, as he says. Two years later, 1618, the Thirty Years War began. Prague was, with the defenestration of two imperial servants, the starting point, and had to endure several sieges during the war.The emperors Ferdinand II. (1578-1637) and Ferdinand III. (1608-1657) moved the imperial court to Vienna, and a great deal of the important objects of the Rudolfinian collections were integrated in Vienna's collections.(24) Not all of them indeed, for enough was left for the Swedes to bring to Stockholm in 1647, when Prague was – one year before the Peace of Westphalia – attacked and plundered, it seems on the behest of Queen Christine (herself an avid collector of art).
In the same year Duke August the Younger (Selenus for us), after hearing of the imminent arrival of his own Hainhofer case including the boards and the Angermair pieces, thought of presenting this precious object together with his book on chess to Rudolf's successor, the Emperor Mathias .(23) He asks himself and his friend Hainhofer if “it would be a good idea to present it together with a nicely bound and illuminated exemplaire of his book to his imperial Majesty?” Selenus had heard, however, that Mathias was not as keen on collecting beautiful things as Rudolph, and so he fears to send it to a place where it could be “thrown behind a door” - that is, neglected – and that it would be better to keep it to himself, “for my money”, as he says. Two years later, 1618, the Thirty Years War began. Prague was, with the defenestration of two imperial servants, the starting point, and had to endure several sieges during the war.The emperors Ferdinand II. (1578-1637) and Ferdinand III. (1608-1657) moved the imperial court to Vienna, and a great deal of the important objects of the Rudolfinian collections were integrated in Vienna's collections.(24) Not all of them indeed, for enough was left for the Swedes to bring to Stockholm in 1647, when Prague was – one year before the Peace of Westphalia – attacked and plundered, it seems on the behest of Queen Christine (herself an avid collector of art).
The fate of Rudolf's cabinet
In the end, there is one curious collector's story left,where the leading figures of the first half of the 17th century are assembled once more. In 1806, part of a cabinet was purchased by the imperial collections in Vienna from its Swedish proprietors who did no longer know where it had come from. During the 19th century it was supposed to have been stolen in 1647 in Prague from the former belongings of Rudolf II and was therefore known as one of Rudolf's “cabinets”. Only in 1993, Hans-Olof Boström published what he had found out: “Rudolf's cabinet” was Hainhofer's last undertaking. He had it worked and stored with numerous objects, but had great difficulties in finding a buyer. Finally, in 1647, one of his oldest “sponsors”, Duke August II. of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (our Selenus) bought the cabinet to present it to General Carl Gustav Wrangel,the leader of the Swedish army - hoping, as he said, to get some relief for his people. This seems to have had the wanted effect, and Wrangel transported the cabinet to Sweden, where it lost its contents and was more or less forgotten.(25) Its history is the reverse of that of the Pommeranian Cabinet of which only its contents remain, while the Wrangel cabinet survives (in parts) with its former contents only known by a long list made by Hainhofer himself and preserved in the Wolfenbüttel Library founded by Duke August. (26) Hainhofer's last great cabinet was one of the last examples of a very sophisticated workmanship using ebony, silver, ivory, semi-precious stones, sometimes even gold, mother of pearl and tortoise shell.
Meanwhile, in a town not too far from Prag, another new fashion of making cases and game boards had emerged. Eger/Cheb had been involved in all attacks of the 30 years war, in 1634 Wallenstein was murdered here. In 1647 General Wrangel besieged Cheb as well. But all this time, artisans went on to work and invented a very special technique of intarsia very popular with the nobility and useful for noble presents. Wrangel was given works by Adam Eck and others by the council of the town. This is a different story, but I wanted to mention it, because at the Museum in Prague (where the lecture took place, note of curator) two very interesting examples of Eger intarsia are to be found, one from about 1650 out of the workshop of Adam Eck , and one of about 1720 from the workshop of Nicholas Haberstumpf.
In the end, there is one curious collector's story left,where the leading figures of the first half of the 17th century are assembled once more. In 1806, part of a cabinet was purchased by the imperial collections in Vienna from its Swedish proprietors who did no longer know where it had come from. During the 19th century it was supposed to have been stolen in 1647 in Prague from the former belongings of Rudolf II and was therefore known as one of Rudolf's “cabinets”. Only in 1993, Hans-Olof Boström published what he had found out: “Rudolf's cabinet” was Hainhofer's last undertaking. He had it worked and stored with numerous objects, but had great difficulties in finding a buyer. Finally, in 1647, one of his oldest “sponsors”, Duke August II. of Braunschweig-Lüneburg (our Selenus) bought the cabinet to present it to General Carl Gustav Wrangel,the leader of the Swedish army - hoping, as he said, to get some relief for his people. This seems to have had the wanted effect, and Wrangel transported the cabinet to Sweden, where it lost its contents and was more or less forgotten.(25) Its history is the reverse of that of the Pommeranian Cabinet of which only its contents remain, while the Wrangel cabinet survives (in parts) with its former contents only known by a long list made by Hainhofer himself and preserved in the Wolfenbüttel Library founded by Duke August. (26) Hainhofer's last great cabinet was one of the last examples of a very sophisticated workmanship using ebony, silver, ivory, semi-precious stones, sometimes even gold, mother of pearl and tortoise shell.
Meanwhile, in a town not too far from Prag, another new fashion of making cases and game boards had emerged. Eger/Cheb had been involved in all attacks of the 30 years war, in 1634 Wallenstein was murdered here. In 1647 General Wrangel besieged Cheb as well. But all this time, artisans went on to work and invented a very special technique of intarsia very popular with the nobility and useful for noble presents. Wrangel was given works by Adam Eck and others by the council of the town. This is a different story, but I wanted to mention it, because at the Museum in Prague (where the lecture took place, note of curator) two very interesting examples of Eger intarsia are to be found, one from about 1650 out of the workshop of Adam Eck , and one of about 1720 from the workshop of Nicholas Haberstumpf.
(c) Barbara Holländer 2018
(reprint only with the permission of the author!)
(reprint only with the permission of the author!)
Notes
1) See Karl Rudolf (2016), 2016, p. 152-153.
2) See Karl Rudolf (2016), p. 133.
3) See Holländer (1998), p. 201-207, and: Haag/Kirchweger (2012), p.119-121.
4) The division of the Habsburg properties between Charles and Ferdinand was made in 1521. Charles stayed Emperor of the whole.
5) See Haag/Sandbichler 2017.
6) See Fučiková (1997), p. 2-71.
7) see Fučiková (1997), p. 2-71.
8) See Karl Rudolf (2016).
9) Karl Rudolf (2016), p. 152-153.
10) See Fučikovà (1997) p. 61: "In the year 1600 Georg Wecker, court turner at the Saxonian Court, installed a turning workshop for the emperor in the castle , destned to serve for working with ivory, wood and jaspis. During the last years f Rudolf's life Wecker's Son Hans worked up in the Prague castle, and produced numerous containers, boxes and "useless trifles", see also Distelberger , (1999), p. 462-463
11) See Distelberger (1999), p. 529.
12) See Hainhofer, in: Roland Gobiet (1984), p. 625, 1187
13) Bauer (1976). See also Bukovinská, in: Haag/Kirchweger/Paulus, page 229-254. Bukovinská describes the story of this inventory, found in the collection of the Prince of Liechtenstein in the 19th century. Ill. on p. 234.
14) See Mundt (2009). See also Emmendörfer / Trepesc (2014).
15) Berlin Kunstgewerbe Museum SMP, Inv. Nr. 2778a
16) Hainhofer himself uses the same termes, when he writes to Selenus on 6 March 1614, p. 50; see Gobiet, concerning the case with various board games commanded by the duke: „in un corpore, intarsiato tutto con argento.“
17) Christoph Angermair's chess pieces (1611) in the Pommersche Kunstschrank, see Mundt (2009), p. 234-236.
18) Christoph Angermair's chess pieces (before 1614) for Duke August d. J. of Braunschweig Lüneburg (=Gustavus Selenus), Brunswick, Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. The case is by Ulrich Baumgartner, made in ebony
19) See Holländer (1998) Kat.Nr. 31, Ill. S. 105.
20) See Laue (2006), p. 13.
21) Laue jr. (1997), p. 62.
22) See Link o.J., p. 27 and Ill.
23) Hainhofer in Gobiet (1984), p. 178: 24 august 1616
24) Kirchweger (2012), p.37
25) Mundt (2009), p. 17-18.
26) Hainhofer in Gobiet (1984), p. 815, 818 ff.
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