The title of the permanent exhibition in the Crane refers to the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries – an era when trade in grain was the foundation of the economy of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and its main port, Gdańsk, rivalled the significance of the largest cities in Europe. The exhibition, set in the realities of the second half of the 17th century, follows the trail of merchants and their goods arriving in Gdańsk by sea, thus presenting a broad spectrum of issues related to maritime trade, the functioning of the port and shipping during the city’s golden age. The element that links all threads of the narrative is the Crane. Its massive silhouette, towering over the Motława waterfront for centuries, is a timeless symbol of the port and the city.
The route begins in the southern tower of the Crane. The narrative opens with a sailing ship’s voyage through the Bay of Gdańsk and navigation towards the mouth of the Vistula. In this part we learn about the role of the Wisłoujście Fortress in the 17th century and the navigation techniques of the time, we can also take up the challenge of entering the harbour on a sailing ship ourselves. Then, like merchants arriving in Gdańsk, we cross the threshold of one of the oldest offices related to the collection of customs duties – the Toll Chamber. This space is an attempt to reconstruct the historical interior, with its full decoration and furnishings. Here we will meet the clerk – the Toll Lord himself – and personally make an entry in the mooring fee book. The whole is complemented by an exhibition of original artefacts from the 17th century, including coins, seals, treasury boxes, treasure chests and writing instruments.
The next part, in which we literally step onto the city plan of old Gdańsk, shows through detailed models the mechanism of operation and the infrastructure of the port. Here, via multimedia, we learn for the first time the full significance and operation of the Crane – the largest port crane not only in Gdańsk at the time, but also one of the largest in Europe. Just a few steps further on, we stand in the middle of the actual crane mechanism. Stepping onto the wooden hoist between the towers, we thus enter a multi-level construction with two pairs of treadwheels over 6 metres in diameter. They are a faithful reconstruction of the machinery that once lifted loads weighing up to 4 tonnes. From the edge of the lift, we can enjoy a unique view of Gdańsk and the Motława River flowing at the foot of the Crane – either traditionally or through a viewing telescope.
Moving on to the north tower, we find ourselves in a space that is an attempt to reconstruct a 17th-century merchant’s office and storage facilities. The interior, reconstructed to the smallest detail, shows both the historical furnishings and the assortment of goods traded by Gdańsk merchants. Here we can see for ourselves how goods were weighed with steelyard balance or how to measure the length of a cloth with an ell. The owner himself can be found here bustling and keeping numerous accounts. From the merchant’s office, we move on to the ship repair and preparation area – a space reminiscent of the interior of a wooden ship. Here we find, among other things, shipbuilding tools, a gallery of crafts related to the sailing ship construction, as well as a disassembled model of a fluit that we can try to reassemble.
Just like the merchants of yesteryear who transacted business in the port of Gdańsk, we end our journey with leisure in a tavern. In this space, we can see what an establishment of this kind looked like at that time, complete with all its equipment, such as furniture, hearth, tableware and clay pipes. We can find out, among other things, what games the tavern guests used to play and what they consumed. Here, we might meet a busy innkeeper, a regular who did not keep moderation in the consumption of alcoholic beverages, as well as an agent mustering on a ship.
The exhibition Gold for Grain… combines the best of a traditional museum with the possibilities offered by modern multimedia technologies. As a result, holographic figures of former inhabitants move about in the reconstructions of historical interiors, moving projections of porters can be seen in the port section, and we can almost literally participate in the entry of the ship into the port in the section devoted to navigation. The exhibition’s narrative is based on an animated film projected in all exhibition rooms. It is a creative adaptation of the merchant and shipowner Hans Kross’ story – the historical figure of Gdańsk, whose ships accounted for five per cent of the city’s fleet between 1695 and 1697. His consecutive stories in each room make up the ship captain’s thorough narrative of the life in the port of Gdańsk in the 17th century.
An integral part of the exhibition are 17th century artefacts, including furniture, crockery, numismatic items, writing implements, measuring instruments and shipbuilding tools. They are incorporated into the exhibition space, blending in with the interior arrangements of the period. An extremely interesting collection, which we can see at the very end of the tour, are the archaeological artefacts discovered during the recent renovation work on the foundations of the Crane. Due to their diversity and the rarity of some of them, they constitute a unique testimony to several hundred years of Gdańsk history.
The curatorial team of the exhibition Gold for Grain. The Maritime Power of Gdańsk: Patryk Klein, Jadwiga Klim, Radosław Paternoga, Wojciech Ronowski, Marcin Westphal, Ph. D.
The artefacts presented in the exhibition come from the collections of: the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk, the National Museum in Gdańsk, the National Museum in Kraków, the National Museum in Wrocław, the Malbork Castle Museum, the Museum of Gdańsk, the Museum of Kraków and the Karkonosze Museum in Jelenia Góra
The exhibition was created as part of the project Maintenance, renovation and modernization of the Gdańsk Crane – a branch of the National Maritime Museum in Gdańsk with the creation of a new permanent exhibition, funded by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA Grants and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland
