High altar in St. Nikolai (Stralsund)
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The high altar in St. Nicholas is in the choir of St. Nicholas St. Church (Stralsund) befindlicher altar , from its former facilities nor the late Gothic winged retable is preserved.
history
Within the three-aisled choir of the St. Nikolai Church, the interior choir is architecturally emphasized by richly profiled bundle pillars. The high altar is in the sanctuary , the polygonal inner choir closure. Around 1314 the choir was still covered. Around 1400 the astronomical clock was made on the back of the altar , on the wooden back wall of which you can still see remains of paint from the former high altar.
There is no information about the initial furnishing of the high altar. Based on the seal of Bishop Johann von Cammin found in 1846 and now lost, it is assumed that an altar consecration took place in the period 1343-1370. This consecration was certainly not the first altar consecration, but that of a newly erected high altar - the construction of the church had advanced and shortly before 1368 the nave was completed.
Today only the grand piano retable made at the end of the 15th century remains . The name of the master who made the reredos is unknown; he had his workshop in Stralsund. In dendrochronology studies of a portion of the wood used a Fälljahr to 1471 and was Baltics noted as the home area.
The sculptor Friedrich Wilhelm Holbein restored the altar together with his brother Eduard Holbein in the years 1855–1856. On March 3, 1855, he reported to Franz Kugler's ministry about his inspection of the altar, which he described as "(...) by far the most important of the existing works of art (...)". He names the main damage caused by the ambient air damage to the gilding and the painting. In August 1855, Holbein received an order from St. Nikolai's provisional agency to restore the altar in his Berlin workshop; 1200 Thaler Prussian Courant were agreed as payment. Holbein rebuilt the boxes for the altar wings and the central shrine using the rear walls made of pine wood ; he removed the painting wings, which were almost unnoticed behind the altar after the restoration until 1931. With the decline of the painting wings, which were regarded as low in their artistic value, and the rigid attachment of the box wings, the versatility of the altar was lost; it was designed by Holbein for an always open view.
The carving was complemented by Holbein on the hands and the veil boards. During his restoration, based on the original, he replaced the poliment gilding with dull oil gilding . Remnants of the original, medieval painting remained only on the painting wings and the back of the altar wings.
Holbein exhibited the restored altar together with new glass windows for the Marienkirche in Stralsund for the Berlin art exhibition in 1856 on the square at the opera house . On August 6th, 1856 he informed the provisional arrangement of St. Nikolai that the altar of the haulier Dietrich had started the journey to Stralsund on the same day, where he was to arrive on August 11th.
In 1931 the painting wings that had stood behind the altar since the restoration were brought to the Stralsund Museum .
During the Second World War, the altar and other works of art from the Stralsund churches were relocated. The high altar reached the castle there via the Marienkirche in Grimmen at the end of December 1943 in Tützpatz ; the removed outer wings remained in Grimmen. From November 1945, the sculptures from Tützpatz were to be transferred to St. Peter's Church in Altentreptow . It was found that the art objects had been brought from the castle to a barn by residents. The side wing and the predella were brought to Altentreptow, the altar retable to the St. Bartholomew Church in Demmin . It was not until August 1950 that the parts could be brought back to Stralsund. The crowning article was lost when it was outsourced.
The painting panels were restored by G. Hofmann (Greifswald) before 1960, but not their backs. During conservation work in 1992, the outer painting wings were brought back into the church and attached to the pillars on the side of the altar. In 1995, the preservation and restoration of the altar began with financial help from the German Foundation for Monument Protection . The inventory had shown that the color scheme was covered by dirt and the frame was damaged by flaking and blisters. Conservation work was carried out on the carvings and the backs of the altar wings and the painting wings, the surfaces were cleaned and imperfections were repaired with watercolors . Extensive work on the sockets was part of the work on the altar. Additions to the carvings were made with oak, partly as a free copy.
In 1997 the missing cross of the destroyed crucifixion was replaced by a copper sculpture made by Johann-Peter Hinz .
description
Former condition
Versatility
In its original state, the altar could be changed thanks to the wings. This change took place analogously to the liturgical design of the church interior. As photographs show, the middle shrine was designed in much more detail than the version preserved today.
With the inner wings closed, the Marian cycle could be seen, the middle change . The cycle was shown in three pictures from left to right. In the upper row: Rejection of the victim - Annunciation to Joachim - Annunciation to Anna - Meeting in front of the Golden Gate. In the middle row were depicted: Mary's birth - Mary's temple passage - legend of the greening rod - Mary's marriage to Joseph. The lower row showed the scenes: Holy clan - Mary's death - Carrying the grave - Assumption of Mary .
On the solemn festivals of Christmas , Easter , Pentecost and the Assumption of Mary, the altar was opened in such a way that the magnificent front could be seen. The Passion of Christ was thus represented with the main image, the crucifixion scene.
Sabine-Maria Weitzel suspects that the depiction of the Marian cycle was shown on the Marian feast days; on the Assumption of Mary, on the other hand, the crucifixion scene.
When closed, figures of saints could be seen on the painting wings.
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Essay
The top of the altar, which was still described in 1839, extended over the entire width of the altar. The three seated figures of St. Catherine , St. Nicholas and St. Andrew that still exist today were each placed in a shrine; they were made around 1420/30. They stood directly above the crucifixion scene, equidistant from each other. Ten panel paintings on the same level each showed a figure. Both Detlef Witt (2004) and Sabine-Maria Weitzel (2011) assume that this altarpiece goes back to the time when the retable was created.
Current condition
The high altar has shown ten pictures in its shape since the restoration in 1855/1856. The largest picture, the middle one, shows the crucifixion of Christ ; however, this picture is badly damaged; the copper cross that protrudes from the picture was not added until 1997. In the left wing the scenes on the Mount of Olives , the crowning of thorns and the carrying of the cross are shown; in the right wing the capture, Christ before Pontius Pilate and the flagellation . The predella shows the Annunciation to Mary , the birth and the circumcision of Christ.
The painting wings originally attached to the altar each show three scenes; they have been hanging on pillars to the left and right of the altar since 1992. The left panel shows the rejection of the victim, the birth of Mary and the holy clan . The right panel shows the meeting under the golden gate, the marriage of Mary to Joseph and the Assumption of Mary .
The top of the altar shows the figures of St. Catherine , St. Nicholas and St. Andrew . The sword and a forearm are missing from the figure of Catherine, both hands from the figure of Nicholas and the hand in which he held the St. Andrew's cross is missing from the figure of Andrew.
The altar as an object of research
The high altar has often been the subject of research. Ernst Franz August Münzenberger dealt in his work On the Knowledge and Appreciation of Germany's Medieval Altars. 1885 with the dating of the altar and decided on the time around 1480/90. Franz Kugler described the altar as a result of his research trip from 1840 through Pomerania . Both Wilhelm Hagemeister (1900) and city architect Ernst von Haselberg (1902) mention the altar in their inventories. In a dissertation on the carved altars in Pomerania in 1914 , Ernst Schneider also dealt with the Stralsund sculptures. Detlef Witt listed the altar in his work on Pomeranian carved altars in 2004. Sabine-Maria Weitzel created a comprehensive documentation in 2011 .
literature
- Wilhelm Hagemeister : A tour of the St. Nikolai Church in Stralsund , Stralsund 1900
- Paul-Ferdi Lange (Ed.): When rooms sing. St. Nikolai zu Stralsund , edition herre, Stralsund 2001, ISBN 3-932014-11-1
- Detlef Witt : The high altar retable of the Nikolaikirche and the Stralsund sculpture around 1500 , in: Painting and sculpture of the late Middle Ages and early modern times in Northern Germany , pp. 295–308, Wiesbaden 2004
- Sabine-Maria Weitzel : The furnishings of St. Nikolai in Stralsund. Function, importance and use of a Hanseatic parish church , Ludwig, Kiel 2010, ISBN 978-3-937719-83-2 .
