Conrad Rötlin

Conrad Rötlin , including Cunrat Röttlin , (* around 1460 in Rottweil ; † after 1519) was a German sculptor who worked in the imperial city of Rottweil. Clear evidence of his works is no longer possible today. In a long-term research project, however, the teacher Heinrich Adrion (1926–2016) clarified the work of Conrad Rötlin to a certain extent and was able to ascribe a number of important sculptures in wood and stone to him. According to Adrion's judgment, the sculptor Conrad Rötlin carried out a groundbreaking change in style from the late Gothic to the early Renaissance , something that was only possible for a genius.

Streak of life

Conrad Rötlin was probably born shortly before 1460 in Rottweil, where the name Rötlin can be traced back to an earlier date. However, its exact origin is in the dark. In an interest letter from 1460 a Conrat Rötlin is mentioned, but in the opinion of Heinrich Adrion it is the father or a close relative of the artist. Another close relative of Conrad Rötlin was very likely the painter and cartographer David Rötlin , who worked in Rottweil two generations later and who created the so-called Pürschgerichtkarte from 1564.

A first track of the work of Conrad Rötlin found in Strasbourg , where he in 1480 as a young journeyman on Epitaph for Conrad Bock in St. Catherine Chapel of the cathedral seems to have worked. Conradus Bock, of Rottweiler origin, had made it to the mayor of Strasbourg and very probably arranged an apprenticeship for Conrad Rötlin in the workshop association of the sculptor Peter Bischof ( Peter Byschoff von Algeßheim ). Rötlin's participation in the epitaph, which bears Peter Bischof's stonemason mark, is documented in a lost document from 1519, the existence of which is mentioned in a brief note in the journal for the history of the Upper Rhine in 1857 .

From 1481 on, Conrad Rötlin seems to have worked in his hometown of Rottweil. His presence there is documented in a letter from Cunrat Röttlin von Rotwil to the city of March 9, 1482, in which he swears Urfehde after his release from the Rottweiler prison , thus waiving all legal remedies. After that, nothing from his life has come down to us for a long time.

Only from 1507 there are further testimonies from the life of Conrad Rötlin. In the early summer of this year he traveled to Vienna on behalf of Emperor Maximilian to visit the tomb of Emperor Frederick . This emerges from a letter from Maximilian dated August 17, 1507, in which the court chamber is instructed to reimburse the sculptor who has returned from the trip: twenty guldin against his receipt. Rötlin is not mentioned by name and is only spoken of by one pildhawer from Rotweil . The real reason for the trip was that the sculptor was supposed to collect impressions on Friedrich's tomb, because Maximilian had the intention of having his own tomb built for himself, on which a number of well-known artists were to participate. (Conrad Rötlin had certainly received the order for the trip at Pentecost 1507, when the emperor was staying in Rottweil with a large retinue from May 17th to 19th for political reasons. Perhaps Maximilian noticed Rötlin by chance and found him capable for Another important document from Conrad Rötlin's life is a letter from the city of Rottweil dated December 20, 1507, in which it says that the heir maister Cunrat Rötlin, the bildhower, and our fellow citizen receive an interest letter, with which the work by Conrad Rötlin as a sculptor at this time and certainly long before that in Rottweil.

A last mention of the master Cunrat Röttlin bildhower zu Rottweil is from 1519.

Sculptures

The story of the discovery by the Rottweiler sculptor Conrad Rötlin began in 1963 when the restoration of the Falkensteiner Lamentation of Christ in Schramberg , Rottweil district, caused a sensation in the art world. The wood carvings, created around 1515, had been changed over the centuries by various paint applications and had lost its original expressiveness. Because of this, and probably also because of the seclusion of its location in the small Falkensteiner Chapel, this work of art was almost forgotten and now nobody knew anything to say about it, it was not mentioned in any art history publication. This ignorance caused Heinrich Adrion to investigate. He sought advice from many specialists, but for a long time they were unable to help him. "Only the almost incidental remark of Werner Fleischhauer , at that time director of the Württemberg State Museum , that the Falkensteiner lamentation reminded him involuntarily of the burial of Christ by Conrad Meit , should open up unexpected perspectives."

The Entombment of Christ, 1496

The entombment is also attributed to Hans Seyfer and Anton Pilgram , among others , but for Heinrich Adrion it was clear after further investigations that the creator of this work could only be Conrad Rötlin. The Entombment of Christ , created in 1496, is now in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich and is therefore also called "the little Munich Entombment". The work comes from an earlier Habsburg private collection, the so-called Ambras Collection , named after Ambras Castle near Innsbruck .

From this Ambras collection came the small statue of a falconer, which according to the scientific community also came from the artist of the entombment. The small sculpture of the Entombment (36 × 29 cm) is made of pear wood and shows a five-figure group: Christ, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathia, Maria and Johannes. A sixth figure has been lost. The high art of this wooden sculpture is unanimously praised in the professional world. For Wilhelm Vöge, for example, together with the falconer, it is one of the most beautiful works of small sculpture in the early German Renaissance.

The statuette of the falconer, made from linden wood around 1500, is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and is therefore also known as the Viennese falconer . Heinrich Aldrion said, among other things, about the falconer: “Despite its small format (height with base only 31 cm), the sculpture has inner grandeur, indeed monumentality. This applies first and foremost to the unforgettable head, in whose distinctive face proud pride, powerful self-confidence and iron energy are reflected, which at the same time manifest a completely new attitude as an expression of the dawning of an era. ”And the art historian Friedrich Winkler (1888–1965) praises that Falconers as "the best small sculptures of the Italian Quattrocento completely equal", as a "miracle" for the period around 1500 north of the Alps.

Bronze statue of the Zimburgis, 1516, in the Innsbruck Court Church

For the tomb of Emperor Maximilian in the Innsbruck court church , Conrad Rötlin created the wooden model for the bronze statue of the Zimburgis of Masovia in 1507 . The work was assessed by Maximilian in Augsburg in April 1508. The absent Rötlin was represented by Konrad Peutinger (1465–1547), who had been instructed in detail by the artist when the work was delivered. The larger-than-life figure (2.31 m high) was soon cut in wax, but it was not cast until 1516 in Innsbruck. "The Zimburgis (ie the wooden model on which it is based) is the first artistically mastered free figure in the long series of Innsbruck statues."

Conrad Rötlin also worked in stone on various occasions. So around 1505 probably in the monastery church (town church) of Gengenbach , where he could have created the three mourning women. Around 1510 a sandstone pulpit was built in Villingen Minster . The unique work, about 3.10 m high, shows a relief cycle of the Passion of Christ and also contains a self-portrait of the artist. From 1511, work on the choir of St. Antonius Church in Mönchweiler followed .

The last work by Conrad Rötlin in the series of his previously known works is the Falkensteiner Lamentation of 1515, with which the search for the artist began in 1963. The picture (152 × 95 cm) is made of limewood and shows a five-figure group: Jesus, Maria, Maria Magdalena, Maria Cleophae and Johannes. The work is the "most beautiful wood-carved lamentation of the German late Gothic on the threshold of the early Renaissance".

literature

• Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin: Villingen, Mönchweiler, Schramberg, Innsbruck, Munich and Vienna. Self-published by the author, Villingen-Schwenningen 2000, ISBN 3-929551-02-0 (Complete revision of the 1970 and 1972 editions).
• Heinrich Adrion: The Villinger Münsterkanzel and its master. Self-published by the author, Villingen-Schwenningen 2012, ISBN 978-3-00-039249-8

Web links

• Heinrich Adrion: The minster pulpit in Villingen - contribution to the solution of the master's question. On the website of the History and Homeland Association of Villingen (also contains a picture of the falconer and the Falkensteiner Lamentation ).

Remarks

1. ^ Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin. 2000, page 84.
2. ^ Rottweil, Stadtarchiv, Spitalkopialbuch from 1558, fol. 28.
3. ↑ Volume 8 , 1857, page 431
4. ^ Stuttgart, City Archives, Rottweil B 203, certificate 693.
5. ↑ Or. Pap. Innsbruck, Landesarchiv, Maximiliana XI 20.
6. ↑ The original manuscript, of which the first pages are missing, is in Zeil Castle (Upper Swabia), Fürstlich Waldenburg-Zeilsches Gesamtarchiv, ZAMs 40.
7. ^ Rottweil, City Archives, Lade LXXIX, fasc. 10.
8. ↑ Falkensteiner Chapel
9. ^ Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin. 2000, page 25.
10. ^ Wilhelm Vöge: Konrad Meits supposed youthful works and their master. In: Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft , 1927, page 24.
11. ^ Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin. 2000, page 33.
12. ^ Friedrich Winkler: Konrad Meits activity in Germany. In: Yearbook of the Prussian Art Collections , 1924, page 55.
13. ^ Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin. 2000, page 96.
14. ^ Heinrich Adrion: The Rottweiler sculptor Emperor Maximilians Conrad Rötlin. 2000, page 86.