Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden

Meditating man , possibly self-portrait around 1463 as a melancholic and thus as an intellectual artist

Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden , also Nicolaus, Niclaes or Niklas Gerhaert van or von Leyden (* around 1430 in Leiden ; † June 28, 1473 in Wiener Neustadt ) was a Dutch sculptor and architect who worked primarily in southern Central Europe.

life and work

Crucifix in the collegiate church of Baden-Baden, around 1467

The training locations and the stations of his early activity are not known. His work shows clear echoes of art in Brussels and the Netherlands around 1450.

His earliest surviving work is the tomb for the Archbishop of Trier Jakob von Sierck in the Trier Liebfrauenkirche . Originally, it was a form of the double-decker grave (Erwin Pannofsky), which was new in Germany at that time, with a figure of the deceased as a transi (corpse) on the lower level, of which only the upper plate with the figure of the archbishop in official costume remains stayed. The preserved grave slab is signed and dated 1462. However, it is unclear when the tomb began and where it was made. The stone comes from near Trier, and so it is assumed that Niclas Gerhaert worked here from the mid-1450s.

Around 1460/62 Gerhaert then opened a workshop in Strasbourg , from where he supplied the west and south of the Old Kingdom. His fame was so great that Emperor Friedrich III. asked him several times to work for him in Austria . In 1467 Niklas Gerhaert probably moved to Wiener Neustadt , where he died in 1473.

Friedrich III. was Roman-German King from 1440 and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire from 1452 and from 1440 expanded Wiener Neustadt as his residence and brought in artists such as Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden, Peter von Pusica and Jakob Kaschauer .

A special example of his artistic work is the stone crucifix from 1467 , which has been in the collegiate church of Baden-Baden since 1967 . Until then it was integrated into the former cemetery of the city of Baden-Baden. It is an example of the new style forms that Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden brought to the sculpture art of the Upper Rhine.

An early main contract in Strasbourg was the portal of the old chancellery, completed in 1463, which was destroyed with the exception of a few remains in the 18th century. A half-figure of a man (so-called self-portrait) and two busts (so-called Jakob von Lichtenberg and Bärbel von Ottenheim) have been preserved from this context. The half-length of a man is interpreted as a self-portrait of the artist in the gesture of a melancholic and thus indicates a new self-confidence of the artist and the intellectual basis of art on the threshold of the Renaissance .

The only work in Strasbourg that has survived in its original context is the epitaph of Prelate Bussnang in the Strasbourg Cathedral . The works mentioned are all stone figures, but Gerhaert also worked in wood. Gerhaert's style shaped sculpture on the Upper Rhine for decades.

Gerhaert's main work as a wood sculptor, the high altar of the Konstanz Minster completed in 1467 , was lost in the Protestant iconoclasm in the 16th century .

However, the figures of an altar in St. George's Church in Nördlingen have been preserved . This is a gothic style crucifixion group carved from walnut wood. The five high altar figures date from 1462.

At the imperial court on the one hand created the grave plate for the 1467 deceased Empress Eleanor of Portugal (now in Neukloster in Wiener Neustadt) but above all the grave plate for the high grave of Emperor Frederick (now in St. Stephen's Cathedral ). He worked on this last-mentioned tombstone from 1467 until his death; the rest of the tomb was completed by his successors from his plans. It is considered to be one of the most important sculptural works of art of the late Middle Ages and the most important Gothic imperial tomb north of the Alps. A particular masterpiece is the confident handling of a particularly difficult material: the spotted Adnet marble . The last detail work on the figures lasted until 1513.

Today Niclas van Leyden is widely regarded as the creator of Our Lady of Dangolsheim .

effect

With his extraordinarily spatial and realistic conception of sculpture, Niklas Gerhaert has been shaping the style of the southern German-Austrian region for several generations since around 1470. Famous masters such as Michel Erhart and Veit Stoss continued his style, and the art of Tilman Riemenschneider is also inconceivable without his innovations.

The design for the pulpit of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna is said to come from his successor.

Works

Dangolsheim Mother of God (attributed to), Strasbourg around 1460/63 ( Bode Museum , Berlin)
Male figure (self-portrait?) From the former portal of the Old Chancellery in Strasbourg
Sibylle (so-called Bärbel von Ottenheim ) , Strasbourg around 1460/63 ( Liebieghaus , Frankfurt), former portal of the old chancellery
Sibylle (so-called Bärbel von Ottenheim ) , plaster cast of the figure that was partially destroyed in 1870
So-called prophet with turban , allegedly Jakob von Lichtenberg ( Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame , Strasbourg), former portal of the old chancellery
so-called prophet with turban , plaster cast of the figure, partially destroyed in 1870
(Workshop) Bust of a paralyzed man (Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg)
(attributed to) male head (Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg)
Tomb of Konrad von Bussnang
Madonna, around 1470
Tomb of Eleanor of Portugal
Tomb of Emperor Friedrich III. from 1467 (side view)

Individual evidence

^ So: Michael Grandmontagne: Niclaus Gehaert and the Burgundian Netherlands. Reflections on his artistic origin, in: Stefan Roller (ed.), Niclaus Gerhaert, the sculptor of the late Middle Ages. Petersberg 2011, pp. 61-70.

↑ Kayser Fridrichs laudable Gedechtnus - The burial project of Emperor Friedrich III. for Wiener Neustadt ( Memento of the original from January 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Dissertation 2011, accessed on January 1, 2015. @1@ 2

↑ The building trade in the Middle Ages - planning and construction of the Neuberg an der Mürz monastery complex . Diploma thesis 2012, accessed on January 1, 2015.

^ Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) - Kaiser Friedrich III. and the court at Wiener Neustadt . Retrieved on January 1, 2015. ( PDF ( Memento of the original from March 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. ) @1@ 2

^ Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) - Friedrich III. in portraits and representations of his time . Retrieved on January 1, 2015. ( PDF ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ) @1@ 2

↑ http://www.landeskunde-online.de/rhein/geschichte/spaetma/oberrh/gerha08.htm

↑ Hubach 2018.

^ Secret of the high altar figures revealed Rieser Nachrichten of February 22nd, 2010

↑ Dehio Vienna I, p. 215.

literature

Lothar Schultes : The Emperor's Tomb - An Odyssey , in: Communications from the Society for Comparative Art Research in Vienna, Vol. 71, No. 1/2, February 2019, pp. 1–16.
Hanns Hubach: Nicolaus Gerhaert von Leyden. The Strasbourg Self-Portrait of 1464. New Contexts. In: Catharine Ingersoll, Alisa McCusker, Jessica Weiss (Eds.): Imagery and Ingenuity in Early Modern Europe Essays in Honor of Jeffrey Chipps Smith. Turnhout 2018, pp. 75–92.
Renate Kohn (ed.): The emperor and his tomb. Interdisciplinary research on the high grave of Emperor Friedrich III. in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral . Vienna 2017. ISBN 978-3-205-20640-8 .
Niclaus Gerhaert. The sculptor of the late Middle Ages. Exhibition catalog Liebieghaus Frankfurt a. M. / Musée de l'Œuvre Notre Dame Strasbourg. Michael Imhof, Petersberg 2011, ISBN 978-3-943215-00-7
Heike Ebli: Niclaus von Leyden. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 18, Bautz, Herzberg 2001, ISBN 3-88309-086-7 , Sp. 1057-1071. ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
Walter Paatz: Gerhaert von Leiden, Nicolaus. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 6, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1964, ISBN 3-428-00187-7 , pp. 260-262 ( digitized version ).

Web links

Commons : Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Literature by and about Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden in the catalog of the German National Library
Literature in the Opac of the Regesta Imperii
Late Middle Ages on the Upper Rhine: Niclaus Gerhaert van Leyden (www.landeskunde-online.de)
Entry on Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden in the database of the state's memory for the history of the state of Lower Austria ( Museum Niederösterreich )
Liebieghaus exhibition Niclaus Gerhaert

personal data
SURNAME	Gerhaert van Leyden, Niclas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Gerhaert von Leyden, Niclas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Dutch sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH	around 1430
PLACE OF BIRTH	Leiden (city)
DATE OF DEATH	June 28, 1473
Place of death	Wiener Neustadt

[1] So: Michael Grandmontagne: Niclaus Gehaert and the Burgundian Netherlands. Reflections on his artistic origin, in: Stefan Roller (ed.), Niclaus Gerhaert, the sculptor of the late Middle Ages. Petersberg 2011, pp. 61-70.