Georg Giese
Encyclopedia
Gdansk
Gdańsk is a Polish city on the Baltic coast, at the centre of the country's fourth-largest metropolitan area.The city lies on the southern edge of Gdańsk Bay , in a conurbation with the city of Gdynia, spa town of Sopot, and suburban communities, which together form a metropolitan area called the...
) - died on 3 February 1562 in Danzig, was a Hanse merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
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As a member of the Hanseatic League
Hanseatic League
The Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
Giese also worked in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
where he was portrayed by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
in 1532. After returning to Danzig in 1535 he married Christine Krüger, daughter of a prestigious Danzig citizen.
His Danzig-based Patrician family, which included Albrecht Giese, bishop Tiedemann Giese
Tiedemann Giese
Tiedemann Giese Tiedemann Giese Tiedemann Giese (1 June 1480 – 23 October 1550, Heilsberg (Lidzbark), was a member of the patrician Giese family of Danzig (Gdańsk). The brother of the Hanseatic League merchant Georg Giese and relative of Albrecht Giese he became Bishop of Culm (Chełmno) first...
etc., had come originally from Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
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Portrait
When Georg was stationed in the 1530s at the LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
branch of the Hanse, the Steelyard
Steelyard
The Steelyard, from the German Stalhof, was in the Middle Ages the main trading base of the Hanseatic League in London.-Location:It lay on the north bank of the Thames by the outflow of the Walbrook, in the Dowgate ward of the City of London. The site is now covered by Cannon Street station and...
(Stalhof), the members of the Steelyard sat for a famous series of portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
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The Holbein portrait commissioned by Giese, titled "Der Kaufmann Georg Gisze", identifies him by his clothing and instruments as a merchant. The painting also depicts him with carnations, at that time symbolizing his engagement. Also, a plaque depicted over his head identifies him, and states that it shows him in his 34th year, in 1532. He is holding a letter he received from his brother, written in Middle Saxon (“Middle Low German
Middle Low German
Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
”): “Dem Erszamen/Jorgen gisze to lunden/in engelant mynem/broder to handen” (“To be handed to my brother, the honourable Jorgen gisze at London in England”).
A misaligned set of scales and the placing of a vase of flowers too close to the edge of the table are suggestive of the instability of the world and our place within it.