Milan Madonna

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High Gothic Mannerist: Madonna from Milan (around 1300)

The Milan Madonna is a high Gothic wooden statue in Cologne Cathedral , which shows Mary with the baby Jesus. The statue was made by the masters of the Dombauhütte around 1300 and was considered a particularly venerated miraculous image in the Middle Ages , which formed the center of the Marienkapelle. It is one of the oldest Madonna statues in Cologne Cathedral; it has been placed on the south wall of the Marienkapelle since the 19th century.

history

According to tradition, the statue is a picture of the Madonna from Milan . It is said to have brought Archbishop Rainald von Dassel to Cologne along with the remains of the Three Kings in 1164 . The naming of the figure, which is still used today, points to this legend. It is believed that the statue of Mary, which actually came from Milan, was destroyed in the fire of the old cathedral in 1248 .

At the end of the 13th century, the east choir of the double-choir Old Cathedral, which was dedicated to Mary, was demolished. In the new cathedral, the Lady Chapel in the south aisles of the choir was to serve as a replacement. The bones of Rainald von Dassel were also transferred there. It can be assumed that the Milanese Madonna, which he had originally brought with him from Milan, was recreated at this time and placed on the main altar of the chapel.

The current statue was carved out of walnut by a master from the cathedral builder around 1290. It adorned the Gothic canopy altar in the Marienkapelle on the south side of the long choir and thus formed the center of the chapel. The Milanese Madonna was venerated in the Middle Ages as a miraculous image and for a long time was considered the third important object of veneration in the cathedral after the Shrine of the Three Kings and Gero Cross . In the 17th century, the statue was integrated in a baroque altar created by Heribert Neuss in 1662/63. The neo-Gothic redesign by master builder Ernst Friedrich Zwirner replaced the baroque altar with a neo-Gothic altar architecture in 1856, which focused on the painting by Friedrich Overbeck . At the same time, the Milan Madonna was moved to the side wall. It was given a scepter and crown during a restoration in 1855 and a new color version around 1900. Since 1948, the altar of Stefan Lochner's patron saint has been the center of the Marienkapelle.

description

The statue is a life-size figure about 1.61 meters high made of walnut wood. It represents Mary holding the baby Jesus in her left hand. Both people look at each other and there is a tender smile drawn on their faces. The child is holding an apple in his left hand.

The figure of Mary is stylistically closely related to the choir pillars in terms of posture and folds. Like this one, she shows a bent posture in which the slender body seems to disappear completely under the extensive folds of the clothing, shown in several layers. The style has been characterized as “beyond French”, whereby no direct lines of development can be derived from the Paris or Reims sculptures. Robert Suckale recently suggested that the Cologne cathedral figures should not only be understood as the final climax of the Mannerist phase of Gothic sculpture, but should also be understood as an early example of the art style, which was called the soft style from the middle of the 14th century . “It should be taken more seriously that the Peter Parlers family , the artistic leaders of the second half of the century, were closely connected to the Cologne cathedral builder.”

The art style spread throughout Europe and can be seen in the Madonna of Michle (Prague) or the Silesian Madonna on the Lion (Breslau).

See also

Portal: Cologne Cathedral  - What Wikipedia knows about the cathedral

literature

  • Ingo Matthias Deml: The altar of the Milan Madonna and the redesign of Cologne Cathedral in the 17th century , in: Kölner Domblatt 64 (1999), pp. 183–226
  • Rolf Lauer: The canopy of the Milan Madonna. Statue tabernacle or relic case? , in: Kölner Domblatt 61 (1996), pp. 147–162

Further literature and media

An extensive list of literature and media can be found in the library of the

Portal: Cologne Cathedral  - What Wikipedia knows about the cathedral

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ koelner-dom.de: Mailaender Madonna
  2. ↑ Anna Skriver: The mural with the death of the Virgin - the earliest altarpiece of the Cologne Cathedral Choir, in: Kölner Domblatt 2019, 71
  3. ^ Matthias Deml, Klaus Hardering: The most beautiful of all, depictions of Mary and Marian chants from the Cologne Cathedral, Cologne 2013, pp. 5, 25
  4. ↑ Anna Skriver: The mural with the death of the Virgin - the earliest altarpiece of the Cologne Cathedral Choir, in: Kölner Domblatt 2019, 71
  5. ↑ Sabine Gertrud Cremer: Christian Hohes documentation of the wall paintings in the Marienkapelle of Cologne Cathedral, Kölner Domblatt 2019, p. 117f
  6. ^ Arnold Wolff: The Cologne Cathedral, edited and supplemented by Barbara Schock-Werner, Cologne 2015, p. 45
  7. ↑ koelner-dom.de: Mailaender Madonna
  8. ↑ Georg Dehio: History of German Art, Vol. 2, The late Middle Ages from Rudolf von Habsburg to Maximilian I, Die Kunst der Gotik, Berlin, Leipzig 1930, pp. 95f
  9. ↑ Robert Suckale: Dating questions are questions of understanding, on the classification of the Cologne cathedral choir statues, in: Klaus Hardering (Hrsg.): The choir pillars of the Cologne Cathedral, Festschrift Barbara Schock-Werner, Kölner Domblatt 2012, Cologne 2012, p. 266
  10. ↑ Robert Suckale: Dating questions are questions of understanding, on the classification of the Cologne cathedral choir statues, in: Klaus Hardering (Hrsg.): The choir pillars of the Cologne Cathedral, Festschrift Barbara Schock-Werner, Kölner Domblatt 2012, Cologne 2012, p. 284