Board game for the "Long Pouf"

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"Right" outside of the game board with the equestrian image of Emperor Ferdinand I, 1537

The board game for the "Langen Puff" is an artistically and art-historically extremely valuable game board including game pieces for the Wurfzabel / Puff game, a variant of backgammon . The work of art was created in 1537 through the cooperation of different people who each achieved individually worthy achievements in the areas of content programming, artistic design and craftsmanship . Its artistic significance can be seen to some extent from the occasional, incorrect attribution to Albrecht Dürer or the historian's statement - albeit quite undifferentiated and blanketFranz Ludwig von Baumann deduced that the game board with the corresponding pieces "is one of the most beautiful things that the Renaissance brought about because of its incomparable design, rich in figures, medallions and ornaments ." It is exhibited in room XXXI of the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna . The work of art is documented extensively and in detail on the museum's website.

Emergence

The game probably came as a gift from the patrician Georg Hörmann or at least through his agency to the Roman-German King Ferdinand I , who had appointed Hörmann to his council in 1534. It was implemented in the workshop of the Kaufbeuren artist Hans Kels the Elder, probably with the significant help of his sons Hans Kels the Younger and Veit Kels . The distinction between the three artists is made difficult by their interaction in this work, which appears extremely homogeneous in terms of style and craftsmanship, and suggests the idea of ​​a "Hans Kels brand" with an in-house system of consistent division of labor and mutual quality control. To date, there is no final consensus among art historians about the actual contribution of each family member to this work of art. The sovereign managed complexity of the entire development process set a symbiotic exchange of ideas and resources requires the addition to the performers and the workshop Jörg Breu the Elder einbezog who got the artistic design and the programmatic ideas Georg Hörmann, who at the University of Tübingen a had enjoyed a humanistic education and, through his extensive network, portrayed portraits e.g. B. could contribute in the form of foam coins and medals. The art historian Elisabeth Scheicher comments on the resulting display options:

"The apparently divergent currents of the German late Renaissance in the form of a still living medieval tradition of visual language on the one hand and the powerful departure into the world of ancient literature on the other, appear in the content of the program of the representations with a clarity that can hardly be surpassed."

- Elisabeth Scheicher : The board game Emperor Ferdinand I Vienna 1986, p. 3

Description of the game board

The game board consists of two wooden panels held together by chiseled bronze hinges, which can be opened and closed like today's backgammon games, and was made of oak , walnut , rosewood / rosewood and mahogany .

The two square outer sides (h. 56 cm, w. 56 cm) with their genealogical and heraldic program serve to glorify the Habsburg monarch Emperor Charles V and his brother King Ferdinand I , each of which is shown on the large central medallions (diameter 23.8 cm) are shown. This is followed by two further levels of medallions on the picture diagonals. The directly connected, slightly smaller ones (diameter 16 cm) relate to rulers from the environment of what is depicted in the middle. The small corner medallions create an assumed overall historical context.

One side shows Ferdinand I in armor in the central medallion on horseback in front of a detailed landscape of the foothills. On the floor in the foreground of the scenery there is a tablet on which the work is signed HANS KELS ZV KAVFBEIREN . Above Ferdinand I is his royal coat of arms , below him the hanging ram's skin of the Order of the Golden Fleece . To the left and right of the central medallion, monograms - consisting of an A overlaid by an F - indicate the bond between Ferdinand I and his wife Anna of Bohemia and Hungary . This is followed by the medium-sized medallions with the youthful portraits of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand II († 1516), and his maternal great-grandfather, Charles the Bold († 1477), the portrait of his father-in-law, King Ladislaus II († 1516), and of his brother-in-law, King Ludwig II († 1526). The monarchs of four ancient empires are shown in the corner medallions: Ninos (Assyria), Cyrus (Persia), Alexander (Greece) and Romulus (Rome).

Hans Burgkmair, equestrian image of Maximilian I, 1508
Template for the medallion of Albrecht II with the wrong year, Heräus 1828

The other board page shows the central medallion Emperor Charles V , of the concept's creator Hörmann ennobled had when mailed knights.

Hans Burgkmair's equestrian image of Emperor Maximilian I from 1508 can be cited as the artistic model for both equestrian representations , which, in view of the fashionable change that had occurred in the meantime, and advances in weapons technology, already appeared archaic among horses and riders in 1537.

The double-headed imperial eagle is depicted above the medallion with Charles V, and below it again the Order of the Golden Fleece, whose grand master Charles V was at the time. To the left and right of this medallion are the columns of Hercules with the motto of Charles. V. " PLVS VLTRE ". Around the equestrian image are grouped four somewhat smaller medallions with portraits of Habsburg rulers, namely King Albrecht II († 1439, with the wrong date 1493), the great-grandfather of Charles and Ferdinand on his father's side, Emperor Friedrich III . († 1493), her grandfather Emperor Maximilian I († 1519) and her father Philip I (Castile) († 1506). The corner medallions contain the ideal justification of the empire of the Holy Roman Empire in the Empire of Rome : the allegorical representation of the imperial dignity with the inscription DIVVS IVLIVS CAESAR PRIMVS ROMAE IMPERATOR MAIESTATEM TENVIT (lat .: The divine Julius Caesar was the first emperor of Rome to rule ), as well as the emperors Augustus , Trajan and Constantine the Great .

Both sides of the program contain a 7.2 cm wide border-like border between the corner medallions with emblematic quinces and between 48 pairs of coats of arms from countries of the Habsburg Empire such as Castile, Sicily, Croatia, Mallorca, Corsica, Silesia, Holland and Burgundy.

The inside of the board contains the game board, the triangular playing fields of which are worked in precious inlays . The border-like border of the game board shows carved tendril ornaments with animals and mythical creatures (including unicorn , elephant, lion, crane, bear, deer, wild boar, peacock and phoenix ) and medallions. The latter contain literary motifs, completely turning away from obviously dynastic and political issues . A connection with the vaunted ruling house can only be seen in their moralizing claim. Illustrated are, for example, the transformation of Odysseus' companions by the sorceress Kirke , the beheading of Brasilia from Dyrrachium , the adultery of Venus and Mars and the (historically incorrect) hand-held murder of the imperial mother Agrippina the Elder. J. by Emperor Nero .

The game board and the game pieces described below often take up events from Ovid's Metamorphoses . There are also materials from other ancient authors, such as B. Homer , Herodotus , Horace and Livius , as well as from the Old Testament , hagiography and Middle High German tales . The protagonists are dressed in the current renaissance fashion and the often naked women have plump figures corresponding to the ideal of beauty at the time. In addition to Jörg Breus the Elder's own pictures, works by contemporary artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung , Hans Sebald Beham and Lukas Cranach can be identified as artistic role models .

Description of the game pieces

The game includes 32 game pieces with a diameter of 6.5 cm each. These are executed in contrasting colors in boxwood carving on oak and reproduce Old Testament, mythological and historical - legendary scenes, which are explained on the back of the game pieces by short Latin inscriptions and have a reference to love or sexuality, which Güthner explains by saying that " Board games were considered a favorite occupation of lovers ”.

The following game pieces are mentioned as examples:

Game pieces with scenes from the Old Testament

Game pieces with mythological scenes

  • ACTAEON IN CERVVM MVTATVS: Aktaeon, transformed into a deer, Diana and Aktaion
  • IOLE ETHOLORVM REGIS FILIA: Iole, daughter of the King of the Aitolians, Heracles and Iole
  • LEANDER ET HERO: Hero and Leander

Game pieces with historical and legendary scenes

Game piece Clodius Pulcher and Pompeia in the Kunsthistorisches Museum
  • ACHILLES ET DEIDAMIA: Achilles and Deidameia
  • AMICA ARISTOTELIS: The friend of Aristotle, representation: Aristotle and Phyllis
  • CLODIVS MVLIEB [RI] VESTE AMICTVS ADVL [TERIUM] COMITTENS: Clodius, dressed in woman's clothes, commits adultery. Clodius Pulcher and Pompeia
  • LUCRETIA COLLATINI UXOR: Lucretia, wife of Collatinus. Presentation: Death of Lucretia
  • THAMIRIS SCYTHARVM REGINA: Tomyris, Queen of the Scythians. Presentation: Tomyris with the head of Cyrus

The backs of the game pieces are sparsely decorated. In addition to the Latin inscription, the stone with Adam and Eve contains the year of manufacture of the game 1537, the game stone with Hero and Leander the name of the artist or the artist's workshop Hans Kels .

In view of the Old Testament origin of the scene with Samson and Deliah , it is noteworthy that the (oldest preserved) view of the city of Kaufbeuren was used as a background , as it were, as a reminder of the concept maker who came from this imperial city . Ferdinand I knew the city visually , including from his visit in 1531.

For comparison: Game stone by Hans Kels the Elder with the portrait of King Ferdinand I, Württemberg State Museum, Stuttgart

In the Kunstkammer of the Dukes of Württemberg of the State Museum Württemberg there are artistically and stylistically comparable game pieces, which are also attributed to Hans Kels the Elder.

literature

  • Karl Bosl (Ed.): Bosl's Bavarian biography: 8000 personalities from 15 centuries . Regensburg 1983. ISBN 3-79170-792-2 , p. 357. Kels, Hans d. Ä. & Kels, Hans d. J. ( digitized version )
  • Tilman Falk: Breu. In: Stadtlexikon Augsburg, Wißner-Verlag. ( Online dictionary )
  • Reimar Güthner: Hans Kels the Younger . In: Kaufbeurer history sheets . Volume 18. Kaufbeuren 2008/10, pp. 409-428.
  • Albert Ilg : The game board by Hans Kels. In: KK Oberstkämmer-Amt, Head Ferdinand Graf zu Trauttmansdorff-Weinsberg (Hrsg.): Yearbook of the Art History Collections of the Very Highest Imperial House . Adolf Holzhausen, Vienna 1885, pp. 53–78. ( Digitized version )
  • Ulrich Kirstein: Kels. Sculptors and medalists. In: Stadtlexikon Augsburg , Wißner-Verlag. ( Online dictionary )
  • Veronika von Mengden: The Ambraser game board from 1537: main work of Hans Kels the Elder. J. , dissertation print Schön, 1973.
  • Elisabeth Scheicher: The board game of Emperor Ferdinand I. In: The masterpiece 5 . Art History Museum. Vienna 1986.
  • Fritz Schmitt: Hans Kels dead four hundred years . In: Kaufbeurer history sheets . Volume 3. Kaufbeuren 1959/61, pp. 1-3.
  • Eduard Wildung: Hans Kels and the board of the Emperor Maximilian I . In: Das Bayerland 48, 1937, pp. 339–342.

Web links

  • Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien: Board game for the "Long Pouf" (1537) , overview page with search terms: Hans + Kels + board game.
  • Sælde und êre - Medieval Game Working Group: Representative imperial game board for the 'Long Puff', 16th century. Online .
  • A game for everyone - a renaissance board game . In: Kuturcheck . February 29, 2020 | Gem of the month. Online .

Remarks

  1. ↑ Theodor Hampe (1918, pp. 44 and 47), Elisabeth Scheicher (1986) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna) in their online presence attribute the work (mainly) to Hans Kels the Elder. Franz Ludwig von Baumann (1894, vol. 3, p. 602) attributes the work to Veit Kels' brother. However, this statement is ambivalent in that von Baumann probably did not know at the time that there was a father and son Hans Kels. Veronika von Mengden (1973) ascribed to Hans Kels the Younger. Sabine Haag (on exhibit VII. 21 in: Georg Johannes Kugler / Wilfried Seipel (ed.): Emperor Ferdinand I. 1503-1564: The Becoming of the Habsburg Monarchy. Museum of Art History, April 15 to August 31, 2003. Museum of Art History / Skira Verlag, Vienna 2003, ISBN 9783854970569 , p. 470) indicates the need for research with regard to the delimitation of the entire work of father and son Hans Kels. Ulrich Kirstein (Augsburger Stadtlexikon, online) mentions all three artists to be involved in this “major work of the Kels family”.
  2. ↑ Significantly, in the ship of fools by Sebastian Brant , published in 1494, a backgammon board is symbolically represented as the subject of a dispute between a quarreling couple.
  3. ↑ For the qualification "oldest" see Kaufbeuren, Reichsstadt - Historisches Lexikon Bayerns. Accessed March 31, 2021 . The corner / witch tower, the five-button tower , the tower of St. Martin , the chapel of St. Blasius and the (dismantled) Kemnater Tor are clearly recognizable by their respective positions and their appearance , see on the position of the buildings: Markus Simm: The king's city in Buron; Kaufbeuren - An urban archaeological study on genesis, early development and topography . In: Stadtarchiv and Heimatverein (ed.): Kaufbeurer series of publications. Volume 11. Bauer-Verlag Thalhofen, ISBN 978-3-934509-96-2 , pp. 228-237. An alternative early modern view of the city of Kaufbeuren can be found here: Kaufbeuren around 1580 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f khm: Board game for the "Long Pouf ". In: https://www.khm.at/ . Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 54 .
  3. ↑ Franz Ludwig Baumann: History of the Allgäu: from the oldest times to the beginning of the nineteenth century . tape 3 . Kösel, Kempten 1894, p. 602 ( Digitale-sammlungen.de ).
  4. ↑ ObjectDB. Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  5. ↑ a b Erich Scheible: The barons and counts of Wimpffen in relation to the eponymous place Wimpfen am Neckar in words and pictures. Chapter: H. Kaufbeuren-Augsburger Hörmann. In: https://wimpfen-geschichte.de/ . Retrieved May 3, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Ulrich Kirstein: Kels. In: https://www.wissner.com/stadtlexikon-augsburg/startseite . Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  7. ^ Theodor Hampe: Allgäuer studies on the art and culture of the Renaissance . In: Messages from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum . 1918, ISSN  2509-4068 , p. 44 f ., doi : 10.11588 / mignm.1918.0.29721 ( uni-heidelberg.de [accessed on June 3, 2021]).
  8. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 58; see also:. Eduard Wildung: Hans Kels and the board of the Emperor Maximilian I . 1937, p. 341.
  9. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 54-57 .
  10. ↑ Hörmann from and to Gutenberg. In: https://www.wissner.com/stadtlexikon-augsburg/startseite . Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  11. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 55, 58 .
  12. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 57-59 .
  13. ↑ see also Christian symbolism / St. Euphrasia - Wikisource. Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  14. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . 1885, p. 59-64 .
  15. ↑ Reimar Güthner: Hans Kels the Younger . 2010, p. 420 .
  16. ↑ ObjectDB. Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  17. ↑ so z. E.g .: khm: Adam and Eve; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". In: https://www.khm.at/ . Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, accessed on May 3, 2020 .
  18. ↑ Albert Ilg: The game board by Hans Kels . Vienna 1885, p. 64-68 .
  19. ↑ Reimar Güthner: Hans Kels the Younger . 2010, p. 415 f .
  20. ↑ Adam and Eve; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  21. ↑ Hans Sebald Beham: Adam and Eve. 1536, accessed May 16, 2021 .
  22. ↑ David and Bathsheba; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  23. ↑ Samson and Dalida; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  24. ↑ Diana and Actaeon; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  25. ↑ Heracles and Iole; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  26. ↑ Hero and Leander; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  27. ↑ Achilles and Deidamia; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  28. ↑ Aristotle and Phyllis; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  29. ↑ Clodius Pulcher and Pompeia; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  30. ↑ Death of Lucretia; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  31. ↑ Tomiris with the head of Cyrus; Game piece for the board game for the "Long Pouf". Accessed March 31, 2021 .
  32. ^ Theodor Hampe: Allgäuer studies on the art and culture of the Renaissance . In: Messages from the Germanisches Nationalmuseum . 1918, ISSN  2509-4068 , p. 10 and 101 , doi : 10.11588 / mignm.1918.0.29721 ( uni-heidelberg.de [accessed on June 3, 2021]).
  33. ↑ Search term "Hans Kels the Elder" In: https://bawue.museum-digital.de/ . museum-digital: Baden-Württemberg, accessed on May 10, 2020 .