Master of the Grönau Altar

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Master of the Grönau Altar is the emergency name for an unknown carver who worked in the Low German language and cultural area around 1410 to 1430.

The master of the Grönau altar got his emergency name after the former Gothic high altar of the Lübeck Aegidienkirche . This winged altar was dismantled in 1702 when the interior of the church was baroque and a few years later handed over to the chapel of the infirmary in Klein Grönau , from where it was transferred to the Lübeck St. Anne's Museum in 1913 by the head of the foundation there . It was simply too big for the small chapel in Grönau. So they limited themselves to the predella , which was made by a different hand a little later around 1450 and remained in the chapel. In the collection of this museum, the altar is one of the outstanding early pieces of medieval reredos . In the course of the 20th century, art history has tried to classify art objects such as the Grönau Altar and find out something about their origin.

The Grönau Altar is one of only two Gothic carved altars from Lübeck churches that have survived over time. In addition, the only one who is still or is back in Lübeck. The other altar was the former high altar of the Jakobikirche of the master of the Jakobialtars . After a church fire it was taken as a replacement in the Marienkirche in Neustadt-Glewe in Mecklenburg and is now in the State Museum in Schwerin . The other Gothic altars preserved in Lübeck are side altars of brotherhoods or foundations of merchants for their funerary chapels in the churches.

In the first art-historical classification, Karl Schaefer, the director of the St. Anne's Museum, suspected an artist who had immigrated from Lower Saxony in 1913 and dated it to the year 1400. He saw forerunners in the altars of the monasteries Cismar and Doberan , but found none other pieces that could have been assigned to the artist. The art historian Walter Paatz corrected the date from 1936 to 1410.

The analysis of the production method also shows a certain level of mechanization in the production of the Grönau Altar, a construction kit principle that, according to current knowledge, suggests production not in Lübeck or Northern Germany, but in Flanders . At the time of the Hanseatic League , the Lübeck merchants had excellent relationships with the Hansekontor in Bruges, and the Flemish trade fair center in Bruges set the cultural trend for northern Germany and the Baltic Sea region in the Middle Ages.

Today Uwe Albrecht dates the altar to the time between 1420 and 1430. He suspects the workshop of the unknown master in Bruges. As comparative pieces, possibly from the same workshop, he names the altars from the village church of Neetze near Lüneburg and the chapel of St. Antao da Faniqueira in Portugal. The retable from Bokel , today the state gallery in Hanover , is also mentioned in this context.

The three meter wide (opened six meters wide) altar in Lübeck shows Christ's work of redemption. In Lübeck it was supplemented with additional (painted) outer wings, one of which has been preserved and is shown in the St. Anne's Museum next to the altar.

literature

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supporting documents

  1. ↑ Master of the Grönau Altar . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 37 : Master with emergency names and monogramists . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1950, p. 127 .
personal data
SURNAME Master of the Grönau Altar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Picture carver
DATE OF BIRTH before 1410
DATE OF DEATH after 1430