Golden Plate (Landesmuseum Hannover)

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The Golden Plate is a double convertible grand piano altar retable that was manufactured in the first decades of the 15th century for the new building of the Benedictine Abbey Church of St. Michaelis in Lüneburg . The four wings of the former high altar that have been preserved are now among the main works of the Middle Ages collection of the Lower Saxony State Museum in Hanover .

History and meaning

The name Golden Table goes back to a work from the 12th or 13th century from the older monastery church on the Kalkberg in front of the city gates of Lüneburg , clad with sheet gold and adorned with a large number of precious stones and gems . During the War of the Lüneburg Succession in 1371, the dukes' castle and the monastery near the duke on the Kalkberg were razed. However, the Benedictine monks were given the opportunity to take the most important memorial objects with them, which they reintegrated into the new building granted to them within the Lüneburg city walls. The golden table and the precious church treasure of the monastery, which has grown over centuries, have been lavishly re-staged here by being inserted into the center of the shrine of the new winged altarpiece in the high choir . In 1529 the Reformation was introduced in Lüneburg. The monastery continues to operate as a Lutheran convent, the golden plaque loses its function in choral service. In 1656 the Protestant monastery was converted into a knight academy , a school for noble and patrician offspring. The golden table remained unchanged in its original position in the high choir until the end of the 18th century, although it had not been used liturgically for a long time. Visitors came regularly from all over the place and had the sexton open their wings for a taler. On the night of March 7, 1698, the Golden Plate was robbed by the church robber Nickel List and his accomplices , who were active throughout Germany . With their keys filed down, they went into the church at night and stole many valuable reliquaries, over 200 rubies, emeralds and pearls and with special tools cut off the gold of the older golden table. A nationwide manhunt finally led to success and the thieves were arrested and finally executed on May 23, 1699 in Celle. Sigismund Hosman, pastor and superintendent in Celle and the confessor of the condemned thieves, published in Celle in 1700 with his book "Fürtreffliches Denck-Mahl der Divine Government [...]" an extensive narrative documentation of the robbery with a consistently moralizing orientation. After the robbery, a phase of detailed documentation of St. Michaelis and the Golden Plate began with copper engravings by Johann Christoph Boecklin in the books of Hosmann and by the two scholars Johann Ludwig Levin Gebhardi (1699–1764) and his son Ludwig Albrecht Gebhardi (1735 -1802), both of whom taught at the Knight Academy in Lüneburg. At the end of the 18th century, the church was finally fundamentally redesigned and the golden plaque was dismantled into its individual parts. The shrine was disposed of, the precious metals removed from the remaining relics and sold. The remaining parts - the wings and the treasure art - ended up in the newly founded Museum of the Knight Academy. After the knight's academy was dissolved in 1850, the treasure art was transferred from the Royal Monastery Chamber to the reliquary vault in the Hanover Castle Church. The two wings had also been handed over to the Association for the Public Art Collection in Hanover in 1851. In 1862/1863 the wings and the treasure were reunited in the Welfen Museum , initiated by King George V in 1851 . In 1886 the works came together in the Provincial Museum.

description

Adoration of the Magi , inside of the outer left wing

The image program of the Golden Table is complex and was designed in consultation with the client. When closed, the everyday view, a scene from the Old is juxtaposed with a scene from the New Testament . The erection and adoration of the brazen serpent shown on the left thus foreshadows the crucifixion of Christ shown on the right . The first change, i.e. the view that appears when the wings are opened once and which could only be seen on certain holidays, spreads life and passion in 36 scenes, which can be read in three columns from left to right and the resurrection of Christ . The second change, which could be seen on holidays that are particularly high for the monastery, showed the now lost shrine with the older golden tablet in the center and around it the precious reliquary in 23 compartments. The open wings of the second change each presented ten large-figured saints divided into two registers, accompanied by six small holy female figures on the intermediate level. The saints are set in an elaborate shrine architecture, which, like the robes of the carved figures, is completely gilded. Only the partially visible inner lining of the robes present different colors.

Research and restoration project 2013–2019

In a three-year research project at the State Museum in Hanover, the Golden Plate was extensively examined in terms of art history and art history, thus laying the foundations for the subsequent three-year restoration, which was successfully completed in March 2019. The restored panel can be seen in the special exhibition Turning Times 1400. The Golden Panel as a European masterpiece from 27.09.2019 to 23.02.2020 in the Landesmuseum Hannover.

Artist

Various artists worked on the highly complex work of art. Carpenters and carvers were responsible for the high quality sculptures and the shrine architecture. Within the paintings, at least two artists or workshop teams can be identified, one of whom has so far been referred to in research with the emergency name Master of the Golden Table .

literature

  • Curt Habicht : The golden plaque of St. Michaelis Church in Lüneburg (= Lower Saxon art in individual representations 2), Bremen 1922.
  • Helmut Reinecke, Lüneburg book paintings around 1400 and the painter of the Golden Plate , Bonn 1937.
  • Helmut Reinecke, The Master of the Golden Table from Lüneburg , Bonn 1937.
  • Ferdinand Stuttmann, The reliquary treasure of the golden table of the St. Michaelis monastery in Lueneburg , Berlin 1937.
  • Rainer Blaschke: Studies on the painting of the Lüneburg "Golden Plate". Dissertation, Bochum 1976.
  • Regine Marth, The Treasure of the Golden Table. Museum August Kestner (= Museum Kestnerianum ), Hanover 1994, ISBN 3924029229 .
  • A figure of saints on the golden table from St. Michael zu Lüneburg (= Kulturstiftung der Länder, Patrimonia 324), Hanover 2007, ISBN 392944433X .
  • Hansjörg Rümelin, The Benedictine monastery St. Michaelis in Lüneburg, construction. Art. History , Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86732-322-2 .
  • Antje-Fee Köllermann, Christine Unsinn (eds.), Turn of the Times 1400. The Golden Plate as a European Masterpiece , Petersberg 2019, ISBN 978-3-7319-0512-7 .
  • Antje-Fee Köllermann (ed.), The Golden Table from Lüneburg (= Low German Contributions to Art History NF 5), 2019.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Köllermann / Unsinn 2019, pp. 12-16
  2. ↑ Henke 2018, p. 395
  3. ↑ Andratschke 2007, in: Eine Heiligenfigur 2007, p. 30
  4. ↑ Köllermann / Unsinn 2019, pp. 26–30
  5. ↑ Köllermann / Unsinn 2019, pp. 30–49