Berlin frame
The so-called Berlin frame is a work of medieval goldsmithing . The object, whose original use is unknown, is mainly attributed to the so-called Egbert workshop of Archbishop Egbert von Trier (977–993). Today the frame is kept in the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts .
description
The Berlin frame, also known as the golden frame, is 12.5 cm high and 10.3 cm wide. The frame consists of four bars, divided into three zones, which surround an empty central field. The inner zone is a simple wavy band pattern. The outer and widest frame zone consists of filigree fields . Originally there were four sapphires in the corners and a pearl in each of the sides . Originally 16 almandine hearts pointed with the tips to the pearls and sapphires. The middle zone consisted of 18 enamel tablets originally made using the full melt technique , which show an identical motif in two color variations: a white circle with a white indented diamond and which is connected to the corners of the tablet by teardrop-shaped rays. The inner and outer surfaces are green or blue, 10 of the remaining platelets have blue inner and green outer surfaces, the two colors of the remaining five are swapped. There are only three colors in the enamels, with blue and green being translucent, while the white is opaque . The craftsmanship of the enamels is not outstanding, some of the checks are crooked, and some of the rays emanating from the circles do not end neatly in the corners. The glass surfaces have holes in some places due to air pockets, and with some enamels, paint also got into the wrong cells.
The Berlin frame was damaged in World War II. The frame itself is warped, and one of the enamel strips on the narrow sides with three enamels was lost, as was one of the sapphires in the outer frame zone.
history
The origin and original use of the Berlin frame is not known. In the 19th century it was in the collection of Christian Peter Wilhelm Beuth , which the State of Prussia acquired in 1854 as the basis for the Beuth-Schinkel-Museum, the predecessor of the Kunstgewerbemuseum. Towards the end of the Second World War, the frame, which had been relocated with other holdings of the Kunstgewerbemuseum, was damaged by the effects of the war, possibly during the fire in the Flakbunker Friedrichshain .
research
One can only speculate about the original purpose of the Berlin framework. It was proposed to use it as a book cover, in which the central field could have contained a drifting work or an ivory tablet , a portable altar , a pax table or as a table reliquary with a central rock crystal similar to the Essen cross nail reliquary .
Since Otto von Falke , the Berlin frame was mainly attributed to the Egbert workshop. The reason for this was the use of gold enamel, the filigree structure and the almandine hearts, which are found in a similar form on the Egbert shrine and on the cover of the Codex aureus Epternacensis . Hermann Fillitz describes the combination of stone and pearl settings with the heart-shaped almandines attached to them and the ornamental shapes of the enamels as characteristic of the Egbert workshop, Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen described the heart-shaped almadine with the surrounding filigree tendrils as the “key fossil ” of the Egbert workshop .
Doubts about the assignment of the frame to the Egbert workshop arise from the significantly simpler design compared to other works in the Egbert workshop, especially the enamels. The the Egbertwerkstatt certainly attributable emails in the Egbert Shrine, Peter rod and cover of the Codex Aureus as well as the founder Email the Essen Otto Mathilden-Cross clearly have more colors, the ornamental emails are constructed at the same time more complicated and also performed better, so that a student's work is suggested.
literature
- Hermann Fillitz : Framework . In: Bernward von Hildesheim and the age of the Ottonians. Catalog of the exhibition Hildesheim 1993, Volume 2, Catalog No. IV-43.
- Franz J. Ronig (Ed.): Egbert - Archbishop of Trier 977–993. Commemorative writing of the Diocese of Trier on the 1000th anniversary of death. Self-published by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier, Trier 1993, ISBN 3-923319-27-4 , Volume 1, Catalog No. 46.
- Sybille Eckenfels-Kunst: Gold enamels. Investigations into Ottonian and Early Salian gold cell melts , Pro Business Verlag, Berlin 2008 (= dissertation Stuttgart 2004).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Inventory number 1967, 24.
- ↑ Eckenfels-Kunst, Goldemails, p. 235.
- ^ Catalog Bernward von Hildesheim and the age of the Ottonians , catalog no. IV-43
- ↑ Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen : The nail reliquary in Trier's Egbertschrein - the “most artistically noble work of the Egbertwerkstätte”? In: Festschrift for Peter Bloch on July 11, 1990 . 1990, p. 9.
- ↑ Eckenfels-Kunst p. 236.