Altar retable of the Marienkirche in Lübeck

The remnants of the altars of the Marienkirche in Lübeck were and are still today part of the once rich furnishings of this church. This list traces the fate of its main altars, as far as it has survived, and the fate of the side altars that remained at the beginning of the 20th century.

Main altars

altar	Dating	Picture carver	painter	Location	particularities	Illustration
High altar from 1406	1406	unknown	unknown	Destroyed by fire in 1407	Oldest written high altar of the Marienkirche.
High altar from 1425 to 1696	1425	Master of the (former) high altar of the Marienkirche in Lübeck		Replaced in 1696 by the baroque Fredenhagen altar.	Late Gothic double triptych with predella.
Fredenhagen Altar	1696	Thomas Quellinus		Damaged in the air raid on Lübeck in 1942.	Foundation of the businessman and councilor Thomas Fredenhagen . Fragments preserved and restored, partly in the ambulatory and also in the St. Anne's Museum. Remnants stored in one of the towers.
High altar from 1958	1958	Gerhard Marcks (crucifix)		Indoor choir	Design by the architect Denis Boniver ; later combined with the reredos by Christian Swarte (approx. 1495) from the mayor's chapel (for the carved view, see the side altars below)

Side altars

The Marienkirche and its chapels had 38 altars and 65 vicarages at the end of the Middle Ages. This can be traced from the Church's Vicariate Directory. Before the air raid on Lübeck in 1942, an altar table from an altar erected in the Segeberg chapel in 1362 was still there. The altar cabinets that still existed at the beginning of the 20th century and the fragments of retables that were still preserved at that time are shown in the table below.

altar	Dating	Picture carver	painter	Location	particularities	Illustration
Schonenfahrer altar from 1397	1397	unknown	unknown		Fragment.
Johannes altar of the Skåne driver	1475	./.	Bernt Notke	St. Anne's Museum	Fragment of the Schonenfahrer altar consisting only of the backs of the outer wings (101 × 71 × 12.5 cm).
Greveraden altar	1494		Hermen Rode	Since 1904 on the east wall of the confessional chapel. Destroyed in 1942.
Winged altar by Christian Swarte	1495 (approx.)			placed behind the main altar today	originally in the Molen Chapel; Winged altar with a crescent moon Madonna (Fig. Above the main altar from 1958 in a closed state)
Rese altar	1499	Imperialissima master (circle)	unknown, close to the master of the Güstrow Altarpiece	St. Anne's Museum	Winged altar with predella (central shrine 174 × 114 × 20.5 cm; wings 174 × 57.5 × 12.5). Testamentary foundation in connection with the establishment of a vicariate in St. Mary's Church by the mountain driver Hans Rese .
Schinkel Altar	1501			From the Schinkel Chapel, since 1851 in the south aisle near the Schonen driver stalls. Destroyed in 1942.
Triptych from 1518	1518		Adriaen Isenbrant	Destroyed in 1942.	Foundation of the Lübeck councilor Gotthard IV. Von Höveln (subsequently provided with the coat of arms of Hoeveln and his wife Margarete Brömse).
Antwerp altar from 1518	1518	Antwerp Master 1518	Master from 1518	Singers' band; Panel paintings of the Holy Kinship from the former Predella of the Antwerp Altar, today in the St. Anne's Monastery in Lübeck
Olav Altar of the Mountain Riders	1524		Hans Kemmer	Named after Olav the Saint . It was in the Bergenfahrerkapelle and was destroyed in the air raid on Lübeck in 1942.
Trinity altar	1525		Jacob van Utrecht	Destroyed in the air raid on Lübeck in 1942	(formerly also attributed to Bernard van Orley )

See also

• Retable from the medieval collection of the St. Anne's Museum
• Epitaphs of the Marienkirche in Lübeck
• Chapels of the Marienkirche in Lübeck

literature

• Uwe Albrecht, Jörg Rosenfeld, Christiane Saumweber: Corpus of medieval wood sculpture and panel painting in Schleswig-Holstein, Volume I: Hanseatic City of Lübeck, St. Annen Museum. Ludwig, Kiel 2005, ISBN 3-933598-75-3
• Heike Barth: The Fredenhagen Altar of Thomas Quellinus in the Marienkirche in Lübeck. Marburg 1996
• Sandra Braun: The Antwerp reredos from 1518 in the Marienkirche in Lübeck. Observations on an Antwerp import piece in the western Baltic region . In: Jiří Fajt, Markus Hörsch (ed.): Dutch art exports to North and East Central Europe from the 14th to the 16th century. Research on their beginnings, on the role of courtly clients, artists and their workshops (=  Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia ). tape 15 . Jan Thorbecke Verlag, Ostfildern 2014, ISBN 978-3-7995-8415-9 , p. 133-161 .
• Max Hasse: The Marienkirche in Lübeck. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-422-00747-4
• Theodor Gaedertz : Johann Kemmer, the master of the St. Olavaltar in the Marienkirche in Lübeck , Leipzig, 1901
• Günther Grundmann: Lübeck In: German Art and Monument Preservation Born 1955 p. 81 ff. Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich / Berlin 1955
• Brigitte Heise, Hildegard Vogler: The altars of the St. Annen Museum. 2nd Edition. Lübeck 2008, ISBN 978-3-937900-05-6
• Walter Paatz : The Marienkirche in Lübeck. Volume 5 of the series German buildings , 2nd edition. Castle near Magdeburg 1929
• Kerstin Petermann: Bernt Notke. Working method and workshop organization in the late Middle Ages. Berlin: Reimer 2000, ISBN 3-496-01217-X
• Gustav Schaumann , Friedrich Bruns (editor): The architectural and art monuments of the Free and Hanseatic City of Lübeck. Edited by the building deputation. Volume 2, part 2: The Marienkirche. Nöhring, Lübeck 1906 ( digitized version), quoted: “BuK”.

Web links

Commons : Altars in St. Marien Lübeck  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BuK, p. 196.
2. ↑ BuK, p. 196.
3. ↑ BuK, S. 200th
4. ↑ BuK, pp. 202-213.
5. ↑ BuK, S. 214th
6. ↑ BuK, S. 214th
7. ↑ BuK, p. 215; Corpus, Vol. I, No. 64, pp. 199-203; Heise, Vogler (2008), pp. 110-112.
8. ↑ BuK, S. 216th
9. ↑ BuK, S. 223rd
10. ↑ BuK, p. 218; Corpus, Vol. I, No. 87, pp. 283-287; Heise, Vogler (2008), pp. 99-102.
11. ↑ BuK, S. 219th
12. ↑ BuK, S. 224th
13. ↑ Eberhard Flechsig: Cranach Studies First Part , Hiersemann Leipzig 1900, p. 126ff ( online )