Füssenicher Madonna

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Füssenicher Madonna or "Schnütgen Madonna" in Cologne Cathedral

The Füssenich Madonna , also known as Schnütgen Madonna , is a Gothic Madonna statue made of walnut wood , which was donated by Alexander Schnütgen for the Axis Chapel (Dreikönigenkapelle) of Cologne Cathedral . After Arnold Wolff , it is the earliest Madonna figure in Cologne Cathedral, alternative dates place it a little later than the Milan Madonna , which dates from 1280/1290.

origin

The collector Alexander Schnütgen, who donated the statue to Cologne Cathedral around 1889/90, reported in the magazine for Christian art in 1908 that it had been "sent" to him from Füssenich near Düren about 25 years earlier, around 1883 . The art historian Heinrich Appel concluded in his essay from 1963 that it may have come from the former monastery church of St. Nicholas there. Reliable information about the origin is missing, a production in Cologne is likely.

Location

Location in the neo-Gothic Epiphany Chapel

The Füssenich Madonna has her place in the altar structure of the Three Kings Chapel of the cathedral. Until 1889/90 this housed the Shrine of the Three Kings in a baroque mausoleum . In the course of the "de-Baroque" or "regotization" in the 19th century, the mausoleum and the baroque furnishings of the chapel were removed and replaced by a neo-Gothic decor by Friedrich Stummel "in the course of a remarkably rigorous stylistic adjustment" . Alexander Schnütgen, member of the cathedral chapter and board member of the Christian Art Association of the Archdiocese of Cologne , has been involved in the processes of redesigning the axis chapel since 1888 and donated the statue of the Madonna and two other statuettes of kings and wise men in this context .

During the Second World War, the sculptures on the altar were housed in the bunker under the north tower, which meant that they were spared from a bombing raid in which the altar was badly damaged. After the war, the statue was initially placed on simple wooden boxes in the altar until the shrine was restored in 1951 by sculptor Karl-Heinz Müller and restorer Roland Gassert.

description

Detail of the sculpture

According to Schnütgen, the statue is 93 cm high, 41 cm wide and 37 cm deep and made of walnut wood. A re-measurement by Appel in 1963 resulted in a height of 96.5 cm, a width of 39 cm and a depth of 35 cm.

The figure of Mary has wavy hair, over which she wears a light head veil that falls down to her back. She is dressed in an originally richly ornamented undergarment, over the shoulders, upper arms and over the lap and legs lies a flat gold-framed cloak in broad folds. The cloak and neckline of the undergarment are decorated on the edge ( trimmings ) with gemstones - cabochons .

Mary holds an apple in her right hand, with her left she supports the graceful baby Jesus standing free on her left knee. She has wavy hair, is dressed in a long, gold-plated tunic and is holding a globe in her left hand. With the right hand it performs a gesture of blessing .

Maria is sitting on a throne-like stool, referred to by Schnütgen as Sedile . Her left foot - in red shoes - rests on a small, dragon-like animal. The composition "Mary as the new Eve with apple defeats evil or original sin in the form of a snake" is a typical motif of the medieval cult of Mary. The back of the wooden figure is heavily hollowed out.

Dating

Alexander Schnütgen compared the sculpture with its French counterparts around 1300 due to its design and proportions, but estimated the time of creation to be in the middle of the 14th century, the early Cologne School. Paul Clemen endorsed this assessment in his inventory from 1937 and placed it at the beginning of the “large series of seated madonnas in Cologne”.

In 1963 Heinrich Appel dealt with a further assessment by the art historian Richard Hamann , who classified the sculpture in a series of so-called "Left Madonnas" within the Rhenish seated Madonnas . These are characterized by a special drapery on the robe. Appel disagreed with this as "not convincing" and followed up with an early dating Herbert Rode, who had reported in the Kölner Domblatt in 1952 about a restoration of the Madonna. After considering all observations, Appel dated the sculpture to around 1310.

In the 1973 catalog of the great Rhine and Maas exhibition at the Schnütgen Museum, Anton Legner dated 1270–1280 without any further justification, but with reference to Appel. Also cathedral builder Arnold Wolff placed it very early in 1986 on the “third quarter of the 13th century” with reference to the common Rhine-Maasland type “New Eva”.

Finally, in 1989, the art historian Ulrike Bergmann summarized the state of research on Cologne carving workshops from the 11th to the end of the 14th century and grouped around 1310 a number of sculptures that move “between French innovation and Cologne tradition”. The Füssenich Madonna therefore belongs to the subgroup of "objects arrested in the Cologne tradition".

Restoration history and evaluation

Current condition of the colored version of the upper garment

In his essay from 1963, the art historian Appel dealt in detail with the history of the restoration, comparing the photos of the state from around 1908 that Schnütgen received with the photographically documented state after the neo-Gothic change before 1892 by Wilhelm Mengelberg , who also designed the altar. “Incisive measures” of the “questionable” and “idiosyncratic restoration measures” deprived the Madonna of historical credibility and apparently ensured that she was no longer considered in research. Specifically, the position of the eyes and facial expression had been completely changed, the pattern of the undergarment weakened and partly completely painted over, and the surface of the other garments had been smoothly smoothed and possibly supplemented with their own plastic shapes.

During the restoration of the altar and Madonna by Roland Gassert in 1951, he tried to get closer to the older versions .

In an overall assessment of the work by Stummel and Mengelberg on the Achskapelle, the art historian Rolf Lauer came to the conclusion in 1993 that the figures on the altar were Gothic in style, but the structure was completely “immediate”: however, the new and the old were perfectly adapted to the requirements of the location and formed an inseparable optical unit created by the color versions. Schnütgen's ideas were not realized in any other work of art of the 19th century "in such a congenial way" as in Mengelberg's Three Kings Altar.

literature

  • Alexander Schnütgen: Seated high Gothic wooden Madonna in the Epiphany Chapel of Cologne Cathedral in: Journal for Christian Art - No. 12, 1908 Digitized Heidelberg historical holdings
  • Heinrich Appel: The Füssenicher Madonna in the axis chapel of the Cologne Cathedral in: Joseph Hoster : Kölner Domblatt. Yearbook of the Zentral-Dombau-Verein 21./22. Episode, 1963, pp. 127-136

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Arnold Wolff : The Gothic Cathedral in Cologne; Vista Point Verlag, Cologne 1986. ISBN 978-3-88973-060-2 , pp. 56/57
  2. ↑ a b c d e Heinrich Appel: The Füssenicher Madonna in the axis chapel of Cologne Cathedral in: Joseph Hoster : Kölner Domblatt. Yearbook of the Zentral-Dombau-Verein 21./22. Episode, 1963, pp. 127-136
  3. ↑ a b Rolf Lauer , Alexander Schnütgen and the Cologne Cathedral; in: Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen : Alexander Schnütgen. Colligite fragmenta ne pereant. Commemorative publication from the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne on the occasion of the 150th birthday of its founder, the Schnütgen Museum, Cologne 1993. pp. 144–147
  4. ↑ Arnold Wolff : 20th Dombaubericht September 1977 to September 1978 in: Cologne Domblatt. Yearbook of the Zentral-Dombau-Verein 43rd episode, 1978, pp. 94–97
  5. ↑ Gen 3.15  EU
  6. ^ Paul Clemen (ed.): The Cologne Cathedral. , Düsseldorf Schwann 1937 ( The Art Monuments of the Rhine Province. Volume 6, Part III; p. 246)
  7. ^ Anton Legner : Rhine and Maas. Art and culture 800 - 1400; Schnütgen Museum, Cologne 1972; P. 447
  8. ↑ Ulrike Bergmann: Cologne carving workshops from the 11th to the end of the 14th century; in: The wood sculptures of the Middle Ages (1000-1400) Schnütgen Museum; Cologne 1989