Stan badań nad Ołtarzem Grudziądzkim

The altar in Grudziądz is certainly one of the greatest examples of the Teutonic Knights’ artistic endowments in their Prussian country, and has attracted researchers’ interest for over a century. They have advanced numerous hypotheses about the time when the altar was built, its style genesis and the authorship itself. The latest research confirms that the altar was built between 1370 and 1370, and was undoubtedly supposed to be placed in the chapel of the Teutonic castle in Grudziądz, where it remained until the end of the 18th century. At that time, in unknown circumstances, the panels of the altar were divided into ten parts, seven of which were sent to the West Prussian Provincial Museum in Gdańsk. The remaining three parts stayed in Grudziądz: one was kept in the cemetery chapel, and the two central ones in St Nicholas church. Then in 1907 the panels from Gdańsk, and in 1912 the ones from Grudziadz were transported to the castle in Malbork, where, between 1912 and 1916, they were restored and united. The united polyptych in its original shape was exhibited in St Lawrence chapel in the castle, where it remained until 1945. On the basis of B. Schmid’s letter from 1946 to Konrad Will, who was the last German Catholic priest in Malbork, we find out that in the times of the Second World War the altar was placed in a bunker in the south-west corner of St Lawrence chapel. It is thanks to this that the altar stayed intact and we can now admire it in the National Museum in Warsaw. According to the certificate of 5 June 1948 issued by Józef Kojdecki, the main cataloguer of the National Museum, the Polyptych of Grudziądz was found in Malbork in 1946 by captain Edward Koszela and handed unselfishly to the National Museum in Warsaw, where, after conservation, it was included in the exhibition of Medieval art.