Cross with the large sink melts
The cross with the large melts is a lecture cross from the Essen Cathedral Treasury , which was made under the Essen Abbess Mathilde († 1011). The designation as a submerged melting cross refers to his most important jewelry, five large enamels made from the melting technique . The cross is one of the masterpieces of Ottonian goldsmithing.
description
The cross is 46 cm high and 33.5 cm wide, its core is made of oak . It is a Latin cross with block-shaped ends. These show similarities to cube capitals with neck rings , which became popular in architecture around the year 1000. The cross is covered with sheet gold on the front and gold- plated copper sheet on the back. The cross is a pure gem cross , but the melting point of the crossing shows the crucifixion. The Senkschmelzenkreuz refers to the oldest of the four Essen lecture crosses, the Otto-Mathilden-Kreuz , also donated by Mathilde . Like this, an internal cross is surrounded by a frame. While the frame of the Otto Mathilden Cross consists of gemstones each accompanied by two pearls , the frame of the submerged enamel cross is additionally extended by originally 24 (21 are still available) small enamels, which alternate with gemstones each accompanied by four pearls . The area within the frame of the submerged melting cross is decorated with artfully double- edged filigree , precious stones, pearls arranged in a cross and an antique cameo . The cameo is a Medusa head , a so-called Gorgoneion . It is a sardonyx from the first half of the first century AD. The cameo is worked in three layers (gray-brown, white and golden brown) and has a max. 2.7 cm in diameter. The cameo, based on Psalm 91:13, symbolizes the evil that has been overcome by the Savior.
It is named after the five large melts on the cross. In the crossing of the cross there is a slightly rectangular plate with the depiction of the crucifixion: Christ stands before the cross, with his head slightly tilted and eyes wide open. At the side of his cross are Mary and John , identified by his thoughtful gesture. Above the horizontal crossbar, the personifications of the sun and moon observe what is happening. The enamel, framed by tiny pearls, protrudes slightly above the crossing of the cross due to its size. At the ends of the cross bars are within a simplified frame made of precious stones, which takes up the frame of the cross bars, four further large, irregularly shaped sinkholes with the symbols of the four evangelists : Above the eagle for John , below the winged person for Matthew , right the Taurus for Luke and on the left the winged lion for Markus . These large melts of the cross show a high technical and artistic quality, which can be recognized in the rich colors and fine definition of the wings.
The back of the cross, renewed in the 12th century, is designed as a tree of life . In the widening of the cross ends there are four chased medallions with angels, in the cross vault there is a medallion with the Agnus Dei .
Art historical research
Research has consistently dated the cross to around 1000. This dating is based on the one hand on the motifs of the 21 small enamels in the frame, which show predominantly floral and carpet-like patterns that appeared around the turn of the millennium, and on the other hand on the versions of the stones derived from the versions of the Otto Mathilden Cross dated around 982 and frame emails.
What is striking about the eponymous five large sink melts is the irregular shape of the evangelist sink melts. The fact that the melting point of the crossing is not of the same size as the crossing is noticeable. These sink melts were created around 1000. Due to the noticeably irregular shape, however, these sink melts were probably created in a different context and were subsequently inserted into the cross, which was considerably redesigned in the process. For this purpose, the sinkholes were cut with the evangelists, the design of which shows Byzantine influence. The irregular shape emphasized their character as spolia . In order to insert these sinkholes, the original design of the ends of the cross and the crossing was given up; the simplified framing was used to integrate the sinkholes into the cross and emphasize their character as a subsequent addition.
Beuckers dates the transformation into the abbatiate of the Essen abbess Sophia . During the redesign, the neck rings of the capital-shaped cross ends became useless, the goldsmith of the redesign covered them with filigree wire twisted in a spiral, so-called “beehives”. This decorative form was particularly common in the circle of Henry II , as was another filigree form, so-called flower crowns, which in the Essen treasures only appear at the ends of this cross. Sophia had been appointed abbess by Heinrich II in Essen and was close to him, which should have given her the opportunity to commission the goldsmiths from his environment. Neither “beehives” nor flower crowns appear on the treasure pieces that Sophia's successor Theophanu apparently had made in a different workshop, so that Beuckers excludes her as the client for the redesign of the immersion crucible. The reason why Sophia had a sacred object that her predecessor Mathilde had made, redesigned and inserted the sink melts from another, apparently important work of art, is unknown.
The cross with the large melts was created due to the dating around 1000 at the same time as the collective reliquary , which was later referred to as the Shrine of Marsus . This work of art, regarded as the most important treasure of the monastery, was a memorial foundation of Emperor Otto III. for his father Otto II and worked accordingly preciously. The shrine was lost in 1794, no illustrations have survived. Beuckers assumes that the cross and the shrine, which was decorated with gold enamel, were made in a workshop that was located in Essen. Since the frame enamels of the cross partly take up Trier motifs, the Marsus shrine was created from 997 and the Trier Egbert workshop , the only known Ottonian enamel workshop, is no longer verifiable after 993, Beuckers assumes that Abbess Mathilde copied his enamel workshop after Egbert's death in 993 Got food. The cross with the large melts also allows conclusions to be drawn about the quality of another, lost work of art.
history
The cross has been in Essen since its creation, disregarding war and crisis-related evacuations. The Inventarium reliquiarum Essendiensium of July 12, 1627, the earliest list of the monastery treasury, does not allow a perfect identification, as it only lists two crucifixer fornhero coated with many stones and gold, but covered with copper on the back . This description applies to all four presentation crosses in the Essen Cathedral Treasury. The Liber Ordinarius , who regulated the liturgical use of the monastery treasury, only mentions lecture crosses in general. Since donated sacred objects were usually not passed on, it can be assumed that the cross belonged to the Essen women's monastery without interruption from its foundation until the secularization of the Essen women's monastery in 1802. During the Thirty Years' War the abbess of the monastery fled to Cologne with the treasures, during other crises the cross was probably hidden in the monastery area. This is documented for 1794, when the French advanced on Essen and the monastery treasure was brought to Steele (today Essen-Steele ) in the orphanage donated by Abbess Franziska Christine von Pfalz-Sulzbach .
During the secularization, the Catholic St. John's community took over the collegiate church and its inventory as a parish church. During the Ruhr uprising in 1920, the entire monastery treasure was brought to Hildesheim in great secrecy , from where it was returned in 1925 under the same conspiratorial circumstances.
During the Second World War , the cathedral treasure was first brought to Warstein , then to the Albrechtsburg in Meißen and from there to a bunker in Siegen . Found there by American troops after the end of the war, the cross with the treasure ended up in the State Museum in Marburg and later in a collection point for outsourced works of art at Dyck Castle near Rheydt . From April to October 1949, the Essen Cathedral Treasure was exhibited in Brussels and Amsterdam , only to be returned to Essen afterwards.
With the establishment of the Ruhr diocese in 1958 and the elevation of the Essen Minster to the cathedral, the cross came to the diocese of Essen.
Liturgical use
Details of the liturgical use of the cross are not known. As far as the sources, especially the Liber Ordinarius from Essen around 1400, prescribed the use of lecture crosses for processions, this was done generally and without mentioning individual crosses. Lecture crosses were often used in pairs, due to the creation of the cross with the large melts under Abbess Mathilde, it is assumed that the melt cross was procured as a supplement to the Otto Mathilden cross. The two crosses were used together until under Cardinal Hengsbach . The last used was in 1992 when the second Bishop of Essen, Dr. Hubert Luthe , presented to this. Today, like the other three Ottonian lecture crosses in the cathedral treasury, the Senkschmelzenkreuz is no longer in use for conservation reasons.
See also
literature
- Klaus Gereon Beuckers : The Marsus Shrine in Essen. Investigations into a lost major work of Ottonian goldsmithing , Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-402-06251-8 .
- Klaus Gereon Beuckers: Cross with the large sink melts. In: Gold vor Schwarz - The Essen Cathedral Treasure on Zollverein , edited by Birgitta Falk . Catalog for the 2008 exhibition. Klartext Verlag, Essen 2008, ISBN 978-3-8375-0050-9 , p. 70.
- Klaus Gereon Beuckers, Ulrich Knapp: Colored Gold - The Ottonian Crosses in the Cathedral Treasury Essen and their emails. Cathedral Treasury Essen 2006, ISBN 3-00-020039-8 .
- Georg Humann : The works of art of the cathedral church to eat. Düsseldorf 1904.
- Lydia Konnegen: Hidden Treasures. The Essen minster treasure in times of the Ruhr conflict. In: Münster am Hellweg 2005, p. 67ff.
- Alfred Pothmann: The Essen church treasure from the early days of the monastery history. In: Reign, Education and Prayer - Founding and Beginnings of the Essen Women's Monastery . Klartext Verlag, Essen 2000, ISBN 3-88474-907-2 .
Remarks
- ↑ a b Beuckers, Farbiges Gold, p. 10.
- ↑ "You will walk on the lions and otters, and step on the young lions and dragons."
- ↑ Beuckers, Marsusschrein, p. 112 (with further references).
- ↑ Beuckers, Colored Gold, p. 8.
- ↑ Beuckers, Colored Gold, p. 11.
- ↑ Beuckers, Marsus Shrine, p. 112.
- ↑ Beuckers, Marsus Shrine, p. 117.
- ↑ Birgitta Falk, "On the Treasury" and "On Zollverein". In: Gold vor Schwarz - The Essen Cathedral Treasure on Zollverein , pp. 19–22, here: p. 19.
