MINT MASTERS’ HOUSE
History
The house was built between 1534 and 1536 as a representative residence of the Schlik mint masters. Later it served the same purpose for royal mint masters. During the Baroque period the interior was partially rebuilt, yet the typical layout remained preserved.
The building burned down several times, including on 23 July 1782 and 31 March 1873. None of these fires, however, destroyed it completely. Only the roof, roof structures and wooden annexes were consumed, while the masonry survived. After the last fire, the building was restored, and the approval protocol of 3 November 1874 states that the reconstruction respected the original layout.
In 1977 the town of Jáchymov acquired the building. It was already neglected at that time, as virtually no maintenance had been carried out since 1945. Within six years its condition became critical: ceilings collapsed and the structure was at risk of spontaneous collapse. A condition of demolition was the preservation of the portal, Renaissance window surrounds, fragments of Renaissance ceilings and any additional elements discovered during demolition.
Description
The two-storey corner building with a pentagonal tower-like annex adjoined the mint building directly. The two structures were interconnected so that the mint master could enter the mint premises directly. Due to the sloping terrain, the passages were situated on different levels: from the mint master’s house one exited at ground level, while entry into the mint was at first-floor level. Another connection was provided by a wooden gallery.
The façade with seven window axes and a Gothic-Renaissance portal was plain and crowned by a gabled roof covered with slate. The ground-floor windows had original Renaissance stone surrounds, which were removed during demolition and allegedly stored professionally; their fragments are now kept in the museum lapidarium. Each surround consisted of seven carved stone pieces.
The entrance corridor had a ribbed vault. The semi-column staircase leading to the upper floor, with a profiled stone handrail, was covered by a rising barrel vault with lunettes.
Rooms on both floors were either barrel-vaulted or mostly flat-ceilinged with coved transitions and Baroque stucco mirrors. During demolition, original Renaissance beam ceilings were discovered, though severely damaged by moisture and wood-destroying fungi. The beams were Gothic-profiled, and the boarding carried painted floral motifs and cherubs.
The main hall, located in the centre of the first floor, was decorated with Classical wall paintings and illusionistic egg-and-dart friezes. Its flat ceiling with a Baroque stucco mirror concealed the original painted Gothic-Renaissance beam ceiling.
Portal
The stone portal of Saxon type from the workshop of Jörg of Bamberg consisted of twenty elements. It was a Renaissance portal with Late Gothic features and ranked among the oldest stonemasonry works in the town. In design it was related to the portal of House No. 8 and that of the also demolished House No. 112 in Mathesiova Street.
The richly profiled doorway was semicircularly arched. The aedicule was composed of mouldings and hollows, and the crowning cornice was supported by six consoles.
Although removed prior to demolition and stored for its historical value, only damaged remnants survive today in the lapidarium of the Jáchymov Museum.
Cellars
The cellars, preserved to this day, date from the period of the town’s greatest prosperity and form part of the exhibition of the Jáchymov Museum. They consist of four rooms built of quarry stone with barrel vaults. Part of the original stone paving has survived. The original staircase leading to the upper floor has been bricked up since the demolition of the building.
The first mint masters
The Mint Masters’ House was erected during the tenure of the first mint master, Ulrich Gebhart, who came from Schneeberg or Zwickau. His brother Erasmus also settled in Jáchymov. Before becoming mint master, he worked as a goldsmith and used a crescent beneath a cross as his mark.
Prior to his time in Jáchymov, he served as mint master in Leipzig and supervised coin quality at the court of the Saxon electors. Although he purchased a house in Leipzig in 1519, he entered the service of the Schlik family that same year and moved to Jáchymov, where he was entrusted with establishing the mint. He designed the first thalers, half-thalers and quarter-thalers.
Between 1522 and 1526 he worked again in Leipzig. In 1526 he returned to Jáchymov and served as mint master to both the Schlik family and Ferdinand I of Habsburg. He created the funeral medal of Stephan Schlik and all Jáchymov coins until 1530. In that year he returned to Leipzig, where his trace disappears in 1532; his later fate and place of death remain unknown.
Another important mint master who was the first to reside permanently in the Mint Masters’ House was Ruprecht Pullacher, who served as mint master and tithe collector from 1544 to 1563.
Fotogalerie: https://mipalfi.rajce.idnes.cz/Jachymov%2C_Dum_c.p._38_-_Dum_mincmistru/
