Lecture by Beata Możejko and Oskar J. Rojewski. The Last Judgment of Hans Memling in Gdańsk
A Happy Accident for Poland…
The Last Judgment of Hans Memling in Gdańsk
Beata Możejko (University of Gdańsk)
Oskar J. Rojewski (University of Silesia in Katowice)
The public lecture is organised in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts and as part of the research project “Bernt Notke: Research and Conservation of the Altar of the St. Nicholas Church in Tallinn” (2019–2025). The Notke research project is carried out by the Estonian Academy of Arts and the Kanut Center for Conservation and Digitization at the Estonian Open Air Museum.
The Triptych of the Last Judgment is one of the earliest artworks by Hans Memling, and many researchers have discussed its story and style. The painting, currently in the National Museum of Gdańsk, was commissioned by Angelo di Jacopo Tani and was intended for the chapel of the Badia Fiesolana church near Florence. In 1473, due to the seizure of the ship carrying the painting by the privateer Paul Beneke, the artwork never arrived at its intended destiny. The triptych was placed in the Brotherhood of St. George Chapel in St. Mary’s Church in Gdańsk.
This paper aims to explain the details of the seizure of the Triptych of the Last Judgment based on archival research, its place within Memling’s oeuvre, the reception of Memling’s work in the Pomeranian region and recent historiographical discussions about the artwork. The presentation provides not only the background of Notke’s time but also can serve as a comparative case study for the overseas visual culture reception. Additionally, this study explains the preventive conservation opportunities for Memling’s painting in Gdańsk and its Baltic contexts to be tackled in the future.
Beata Możejko is the director of the Memling Research Center and a Full Professor at the University of Gdańsk in Poland. Her expertise primarily lies in the auxiliary sciences of history and maritime history, particularly as it pertains to Gdańsk and other cities within the Hanseatic League during the Middle Ages. Możejko is a member of the Editorial Committee of the Gdańsk Encyclopedia (Gedanopedia) and has served on the Presiding Office of the Committee of Historical Sciences within the Polish Academy of Sciences from 2020 to 2023. Furthermore, she is a corresponding Fellow of the Centre for Medieval Studies in Prague since 2021 and is involved with MECERN, the Medieval Central Europe Research Network. Her research interests encompass a range of topics, notably maritime issues related to the historical context of Gdańsk and Hanseatic cities, as well as interdisciplinary studies, such as examining crops in maritime Gdańsk in collaboration with the Faculty of Biology at the University of Gdańsk. Additionally, she has explored wreck sites in the Bay of Gdańsk in cooperation with the National Maritime Museum. Her work also extends to the Jagiellonian dynasty, contributing to our understanding of this influential royal family in Eastern Europe. With a prolific publication record of around 150 articles and several books, Możejko has made significant contributions to her field, enhancing both scholarly discourse and public understanding of medieval history in Poland and beyond.
Oskar J. Rojewski is an Associate Professor at the University of Silesia in Katowice and is affiliated with the Instituto Moll, a center dedicated to the study of Flemish painting, as well as the Centre for Privacy Studies. He holds a multifaceted educational background, with a BA in History and Art History from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, an MA in Cultural Heritage and Preventive Conservation from the University of Valencia, and a PhD from both the University Jaume I and the University of Valencia. His postdoctoral experience includes positions at: the University of Copenhagen (2019-2020), University Rey Juan Carlos in Spain (2021-2022), and Catholic University of Leuven and Fondation Périer D’Ieteren in Belgium (2023). Rojewski’s research primarily focuses on the migration of Flemish masters and court artists in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. His areas of expertise extend to the iconography of power, courtly culture, and festivities. He is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) for the research project “Re-thinking ‘Het Schilder-boeck’ (the Book of Painting),” which aims to trace the migration patterns of Flemish masters during the 15th and 16th centuries and is funded by the National Centre for Science in Poland.
