Brömserhof (Rüdesheim am Rhein)

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Brömserhof, view from the southeast

The Brömserhof is a former aristocratic residence and manor on Oberstrasse in Rüdesheim am Rhein . The complex was the headquarters of the Brömser von Rüdesheim family , after whom the Brömserburg is named.

In the 16th and 17th centuries was a late medieval festival home of several family generations to a castle-like facility in the style of the Renaissance and the Baroque rebuilt and extended. After the Brömser von Rüdesheim family died out in 1668, the property finally came to Sophie von Coudenhoven via various noble families , who sold it to private individuals in the 1830s. At the beginning of the 1850s, part of the town of Rüdesheim bought it, and the Brömserhof was subsequently used by social institutions. After damage in the Second World War , partial demolitions and a long vacancy, it has been home to Siegfried's Mechanisches Musikkabinett , a museum for mechanical musical instruments, since 1975 .

history

Today's Brömserhof probably came from a villa rustica or an estate from the 5th / 6th centuries. Century. At that time the property was still far outside the city and belonged to the Niederburg (also called Brömserburg) property. The farm was later the seat of the Brömser family, a branch of the von Rüdesheim family belonging to the local nobility, which had split into several lines in the 13th century. The Brömser von Rüdesheim replaced the old manor house in the Middle Ages with a permanent house , which makes up the north-west part of today's main house. Rolf Göttert (see literature ) dates this part to the time around 1310 due to the architectural similarities between his cellar and that of the Brömserburg. When the Rüdesheim city wall was rebuilt around 1500, the Brömserhof was included in its course and thus became a corner bastion of the city fastening . The need for defense also explains the thickness of some of the walls that have been preserved in the main house and are now inside.

Entrance with bay window built by Heinrich Brömser

Heinrich (I.) Brömser (approx. 1490–1543) and his wife Apollonia von Ingelheim extended the existing house including the stair tower to the east with an extension with a small inner courtyard. From then on, the kitchen rooms were located in this new building. Her eldest son Heinrich (II.) Brömser (1535–1564) inherited the property in 1543 and found that it was very dilapidated. Together with his wife Walpurga (also written as Walburga and Walpurgis) von Greiffenclau zu Vollrads , he had the Brömserhof renewed and redesigned in the post-Gothic style - perhaps with the inclusion of older buildings . So they had two rooms on the upper floor decorated with wall and ceiling paintings in the taste of the late Renaissance at that time , for which the Brömserhof is known far beyond the Rheingau today. The financial means for this probably came from the rich legacy of Walpurga von Greiffenclaus, whose father had died in 1558. Around 20 stonemasons alone were involved in the renovation work , as evidenced by the various stonemason marks on the steps, door and window frames and vault ribs. The grandson of the pair, Johann Reichard was, Electoral Mainz advice and Vizedom in the Rheingau. In 1588 he married Margarethe von Kronberg, who came from an extraordinarily wealthy family and brought a large dowry into the marriage. This made it possible for the couple to build the large so-called Mang'sche House on the east side of the courtyard in place of an earlier farm building in 1609, which was named after a later owner family. In 1610 the construction of a no longer preserved draw well in the Binnenhof followed. Johann Reichard and Margarethes son Heinrich (III.) And his wife Maria Magdalena von Heddesdorf completed the renovation and extension of the Brömserhof by changing the southern part of the main house and equipping it with a bay window above the entrance . Their alliance coat of arms and the year 1650 on the bay tell of them as the builders. In addition, they had a stair tower built to connect the main house to the Mang'schen house and the farm buildings on the street on the south side of the inner courtyard were renewed. At the end, the property was given an embossed gate over the archway of which the year 1652 announced the year of its construction. This completed the transformation of the Brömserhof from a medieval manor into a representative aristocratic residence in the Renaissance and Baroque styles.

Henry III. Brömser was granted what his great-grandfather Heinrich II had wished for: in 1646 he was promoted to the baron status for his services in the peace negotiations to end the Thirty Years' War . When he died childless on November 25, 1668, the rich inheritance was divided among his three sisters. The Brömserhof fell to Anna Sidonie, who was married to Hermann von Kronberg. Through her daughter Maria Margarethe the property passed to the grandson Adolf Johann Karl von Bettendorf. When the von Bettendorf family died out, the inheritance went to the von Ehrthal and von Frankenstein families in 1770. In 1805 the last male member of the von Ehrtal family died, and his share in the Brömserhof went to Countess Sophie von Coudenhoven, née. from Hatzfeld. She also acquired the Frankenstein part of the complex and used the property as a residence. At that time, two valuable pieces of furniture belonged to the furnishings of the house: on the one hand, a large four-poster bed that was richly decorated with carvings and had Old Testament images, and on the other, a heavy, Gothic wooden table from 1549 showing portraits of the Kronenberg family. In 1831/34 Sophie von Coudenhoven sold the Brömserhof to several private individuals from Rüdesheim. The precious furniture of the Brömserhofs came into the Schloss Johannisberg , property related with the Brömsern family Metternich was.

In 1851/53, the city of Rüdesheim acquired the main building and the adjoining south wing of the complex and used it for various social institutions. These included a poor and disabled house, a shelter for the homeless, a kindergarten and a school. In order to separate the western part of the courtyard, which was owned by the city, from that of the other owners in the eastern part, a wall was drawn across the inner courtyard, which cut it into two parts. This partition wall was still in place in the first quarter of the 20th century. In the 19th century, unknown bodies of water were temporarily stored in the rooms with the valuable wall and vault paintings. For this purpose, the ceiling and walls were painted over with a gray glue paint. When in 1898 the then Mayor of Rüdesheim, Alberti, ordered the gray paintwork to be renewed, this led to the rediscovery of Renaissance paintings. The Frankfurt painter Gustav Ballin was commissioned to uncover and restore them . The Rheingauer Kunstverein later used the rooms as a local museum for several years . The Brömserhof was badly damaged by bombs on November 25, 1944. Part of the east wing of his main house and the adjoining stair tower were destroyed. In 1963 the cooper's house belonging to the property was demolished due to a road widening . In the course of this work, the embossed south gate and the draw well were unnecessarily put down. As early as the 1950s, the then owners of the Mang'schen Haus converted the building into a restaurant and changed the building very significantly. The main building of the Brömserhof stood empty and unused for a long time before Siegfried Wendel leased the building in 1975 to move his museum for mechanical musical instruments into it . In 1998 the leaseholder acquired the main building from the city of Rüdesheim.

description

Ground floor plan of the main house at the beginning of the 20th century

The Brömserhof is a multi-part complex, the buildings of which are grouped around a courtyard. They were created by changing and gradually expanding a medieval fortress house.

architecture

Coat of arms from 1650 above the entrance

The main house is on the north side of the complex, at the foot of the famous Hinterhaus vineyard . It consists of two solid buildings of roughly the same size, parallel to each other on the eaves side, each with its own steep gable roof and shield gable on the western front side. The south facade of the south of these two buildings, facing the courtyard, is divided into nine axes by windows, with the main entrance in the middle axis. Above this is a small oriel covered by a bell dome, the console stones of which are shaped like heads. It shows the alliance coat of arms and the initials of its builders as well as the year 1650. The inscription reads: " H (einrich) B (romanser) V (on) R (üdesheim) M (aria) M (agdalena) V (on) H (eddesheim ) ANO1650 ". Inside this southern section with a basement there used to be classrooms on the ground floor, while elegant reception rooms were located on the upper floor. In the north part of the main house there are two rooms with wall and vault paintings that are particularly valuable in terms of art history . The eastern one is the so-called ancestral hall . The 7 × 5.50 meter room has a star vault with double grooved ribs, in whose 14 vault caps the representations of 32 coats of arms can be found. These are a kind of ancestral test , because they all show the coat of arms of Brömserisch-Griffclau ancestors. A three-part window in the north wall, which follows Gothic motifs, provides the lighting . Wall cabinets in the east and west walls fit seamlessly into the wall decoration. To the west, next to the ancestral hall, is the so-called chapel with a floor covering made of fired clay tiles. The 9 x 3.60 meters large room has a rip loose cross vault with two yokes and is also equipped with wall and ceiling paintings. However, since it has been guaranteed that there was a marriage bed there in the 1820s, it is more likely to be the former stately bedroom than a house chapel. Another indication of this is the fact that a small toilet can be reached from this room . However, there is evidence that a private chaplain was still active in the Brömserhof in 1820. Next to the chapel in the west is an elongated room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, which was previously assumed to have been the sacristy . On the south side of the ancestral hall there is a stair tower with a stone spiral staircase that is now completely inside the building . In the lower area it is now cut through by a modern staircase. Its octagonal top shows notch-shaped openings on the north side, which are very similar to loopholes that can be found on the north outer wall of the main house.

At the south-west corner of the main house there is a representative four - cornered half-timbered tower with three storeys. Its high tent roof is flanked by four watch towers with pointed, hexagonal helmets . Dendrochronological studies of the wooden beams in the attic showed that the trees used for this purpose were felled in 1416/1417. This would make the tower the oldest known half-timbered building in the Rheingau to date. However, it cannot be ruled out that the wood was used a second time in the construction of the tower. The western outer side is not made of half-timbering , but of quarry stone masonry, which shows that this tower was once leaned against the city wall. The function of the building in the past has not yet been established with certainty. Because of its comparatively light half-timbered construction, its use as a pure defense or watchtower is rather unlikely. It could be used as a weir storage facility , which was redesigned for residential purposes in the 18th century. A baroque stucco ceiling on one of the upper floors attests to this . The crowd watch towers are an indication that the tower has always served as a representation.

Mang's house

The so-called Mang'sche House from the beginning of the 17th century forms the eastern part of the Brömserhof. Above the stone ground floor there is a storey, the south wall of which consists of half-timbering and which is closed off by a pan- roofed gable roof. Its western volute gable is decorated with sandstone decor and has cornices . A small flight of stairs , which is now somewhat hidden, leads to the segmented main entrance, over which the building year 1609 is carved. As a special decoration, the southern half-timbered side has particularly elaborately designed compartments under the windows .

The representative half-timbered tower is adjoined on its west side by a three-winged building complex in an approximately horseshoe shape, which dates from around the middle of the 17th century and was formerly used for commercial purposes. Its basement with vaulted ceilings comes from a previous building. Other farm buildings used to belong to the complex, including a cooper's house, a wine press hall , a sheepfold and a large brewery across the street, but these buildings have all disappeared. The same applies to a draw well in the Binnenhof, which was installed there in 1610. It was flanked by two pilasters that supported an architrave and a gable top. The coats of arms of Johann Reichard Brömser and his wife Margarethe von Kronberg were depicted in it.

Wall and vault paintings

The wall and vault paintings in the chapel and the ancestral hall are considered by experts to be one of the most important profane decorations of the Renaissance period in Germany in terms of presentation and scope as well as cohesion and artistic and craftsmanship quality . The paintings, applied using the Secco technique , depict secular and religious matters casually side by side and are marked with "JRVWM 1559". The artist was considered unknown for a long time before the lettering in 1980 was interpreted as "Johannes Ritter von Wetzlar, painter 1559". The artist is known today as Hans Ritter called Döring. The then owner of the property, Heinrich (II.) Brömser, could have met him, a student and employee of Lucas Cranach the Elder , on the construction site of the Dillenburg Castle . At that time, Döring was in the service of the Counts of Nassau-Dillenburg , and Heinrich (II.) Could have made a stop in Dillenburg on one of his business trips in his capacity as Senior Administrator of the County of Hanau-Munzenberg . Since Döring died in 1558, however, it is possible that he only did the preparatory work for the work, while his son Jörg, who worked as a graphic artist in Mainz , completed the wall and ceiling paintings and, accordingly, did not give the monogram to the father, but is to be assigned to the son.

The paintings in the two rooms show not only religious themes, but also stylized naturalistic representations of plants and animals, but also fantasy and mythical figures such as fauns and grotesques . In the ancestral hall, 32 coats of arms adorn the vaulted ceiling. They show the coats of arms from five generations of ancestors of Heinrich (II.) Brömser and his wife. Four bands with inscriptions explain the representations. On the walls of the room there are two large-format pictures from the legend of Jonah , but in this case the event was moved to the Rhine , because the background of the paintings shows the city silhouettes of Rüdesheim and Mainz. The wall surfaces under the paintings were previously covered with lambris . The coats of arms of Heinrich (II.) Brömser and his wife Walpurga von Greiffenclau zu Vollrads can be found in the first yoke of the chapel . In the second yoke, on the other hand, there is a representation of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, as well as caryatids and satyrs as well as ornamental decorations such as foliage and flower tendrils. The flat vaults are highlighted by painted festoons .

After the paintings were discovered by chance at the end of the 19th century, they were uncovered and restored by Gustav Ballin from 1898 to 1900. Further restorations followed in 1934 and in the 1950s and 1960s, but these did not result in permanent preservation of the paintings, so that at the beginning of the 21st century these works were threatened with loss. Extensive preliminary investigations between 2005 and 2007 were followed by a multi-year restoration from 2008 onwards. The work was financed by the federal government and the state of Hesse and carried out by specialists from the HAWK Hochschule Hildesheim / Holzminden / Göttingen under the direction of Nicole Riedl. Areas whose painting had already been lost were not added again. Instead, a special device is used to project the original paintings onto the corresponding wall and ceiling sections.

  • Vault in the ancestral hall

  • Vaulted ceiling in the ancestral hall

  • Wall painting with the Jonas legend

  • Wall painting with the Jonas legend

  • Some coats of arms in the ancestral hall
  • Rüdesheim, Brömserhof, coat of arms in the ancestral hall KSG 8098 pK.jpg
  • Rüdesheim, Brömserhof, coat of arms in the ancestral hall KSG 8099 pK.jpg
  • Rüdesheim, Brömserhof, coat of arms in the ancestral hall KSG 8100 pK.jpg
  • Rüdesheim, Brömserhof, coat of arms in the ancestral hall KSG 8101 pK.jpg
  • Rüdesheim, Brömserhof, coat of arms in the ancestral hall KSG 8102 pK.jpg

Siegfried's Mechanical Music Cabinet

Since 1975, the Brömserhof has housed Siegfried's Mechanisches Musikkabinett , a museum for mechanical musical instruments . Museum operator Siegfried Wendel opened it in Hochheim am Main in October 1969. In 1973 the company moved to Rüdesheim into the building of the former winegrowers' cooperative . Increasing visitor numbers and the gradual growth of the collection led to the need for larger premises, so that the museum had to move again after only two years. This time it found a permanent home in the Brömserhof. The exhibition deals with the history of self-playing musical instruments and today shows around 350 exhibits from three centuries, from the music box to the fair organ and a porcelain carillon from Meissen to the orchestrion . The visit is possible daily from March to October as part of a 45-minute tour. Around 120,000 visitors a year currently make use of this.

  • Exhibits in the exhibition
  • Rudesheim Museum 03 (5485696047) .jpg
  • Siegfried's Mechanisches Musikkabinett, Rüdesheim am Rhein 04.jpg
  • Siegfried's Mechanisches Musikkabinett, Rüdesheim am Rhein 05.jpg
  • Rudesheim Museum 01 (5485682117) .jpg

literature

  • Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. A study . Frey, Frankfurt a. M. 1901.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district . Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich [a. a.] 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , pp. 700-701.
  • Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument . In: Notes from the city archive. Contributions to the history of the town of Rüdesheim . Volume 78. Rüdesheim City Archives, Rüdesheim am Rhein 1997, pp. 1–5 ( PDF ; 117 kB).
  • Rolf Göttert: Art in old walls: wall paintings in the Rüdesheimer Brömserhof . In: Notes from the city archive. Contributions to the history of the town of Rüdesheim . Volume 146. Rüdesheim City Archives, Rüdesheim am Rhein 2010, pp. 1–5 ( PDF ; 103 kB).
  • Friedrich Gottschalck: The knight castles and mountain castles of Germany . Volume 3, 2nd edition. Hemmerde and Schwetschke, Halle 1820, pp. 241–243 ( digitized version ).
  • Ferdinand Luthmer : The architectural and art monuments of the Rheingau (= the architectural and art monuments of the Wiesbaden administrative district . Volume 1). 2nd Edition. Heinrich Keller, Frankfurt am Main 1907, pp. 37–43 ( digitized version ).
  • Rolf Müller (Ed.): Palaces, castles, old walls. Published by the Hessendienst der Staatskanzlei, Wiesbaden 1990, ISBN 3-89214-017-0 , pp. 304–305.
  • Dagmar Söder: Forgotten Gothic - The Rediscovery of Medieval Residential Buildings. New research in the Rheingau. In: Monument Preservation & Cultural History. Volume 3, No. 1, 2000, ISSN  1436-168X , pp. 23-28 ( online ).

Web links

Commons : Brömserhof  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. ^ Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument. 1997, p. 1.
  2. ↑ The building history presented here is based on the two essays The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument and art in old walls. Wall paintings in the Rüdesheimer Brömserhof by Rolf Göttert. In her article, however, Dagmar Söder pointed out that the results of dendrochronological investigations on the roof trusses of the various sections could at least result in a partial revision of the previous building history.
  3. ^ Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument. 1997, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. 1901, p. 5.
  5. ↑ a b Rolf Göttert: Art in old walls. Wall paintings in the Rüdesheimer Brömserhof. 2011, p. 3.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h Dagmar Söder: Forgotten Gothic - The rediscovery of medieval residential buildings. 2000.
  7. ^ Gudrun Anne Dekker: Snow White: blonde daughter of a noblewoman from East Friesland. A historical search for traces. BoD, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7118-4 , p. 130.
  8. ↑ Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. 1901, p. 7.
  9. ^ Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument. 1997, pp. 4-5.
  10. ^ A b Gudrun Anne Dekker: Snow White: blonde daughter of a noblewoman from East Friesland. A historical search for traces. BoD, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7118-4 , p. 134.
  11. ↑ Christian von Stramberg: The Rheingau (= memorable and useful Rheinischer Antiquarius. Part 2, Volume 10). Hergt, Koblenz 1861, p. 463 ( digitized version ).
  12. ^ A b Christian von Stramberg: The Rheingau (= memorable and useful Rheinischer Antiquarius. Part 2, Volume 10). Hergt, Koblenz 1861, p. 464 ( digitized version ).
  13. ^ August von Cohausen : The fortifications in Rüdesheim am Rhein, especially the Niederburg. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung . Volume 6, No. 31, 1886, p. 305 ( digitized ).
  14. ^ Ferdinand Gottschalck: The knight castles and mountain castles of Germany. 1820, p. 242.
  15. ↑ a b c d Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument. 1997, p. 4.
  16. ↑ a b Rolf Göttert: Art in old walls. Wall paintings in the Rüdesheimer Brömserhof. 2011, p. 1.
  17. ↑ Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. 1901, p. 13.
  18. ^ Gudrun Anne Dekker: Snow White: blonde daughter of a noblewoman from East Friesland. A historical search for traces. BoD, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7118-4 , pp. 134-135.
  19. ↑ a b Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. 1901, p. 4.
  20. ↑ Ferdinand Luthmer: The architectural and art monuments of the Rheingau. 1907, p. 40.
  21. ↑ Ferdinand Luthmer: The architectural and art monuments of the Rheingau. 1907, p. 42.
  22. ↑ a b Rolf Göttert: The Rüdesheimer Brömserhof as a cultural monument. 1997, p. 3.
  23. ^ Georg Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. 2008, p. 700.
  24. ↑ Ferdinand Luthmer: The architectural and art monuments of the Rheingau. 1907, p. 38.
  25. ↑ Ferdinand Luthmer: The architectural and art monuments of the Rheingau. 1907, p. 39.
  26. ↑ a b c Restoration of the chapel and ancestral hall in the Brömserhof ( memento from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  27. ↑ Rolf Göttert: Art in old walls. Wall paintings in the Rüdesheimer Brömserhof. 2011, p. 2.
  28. ↑ Gustav Ballin: The Brömserhof and its builders, the noble knights Broemser von Rüdesheim. 1901, p. 10.
  29. ^ Gudrun Anne Dekker: Snow White: blonde daughter of a noblewoman from East Friesland. A historical search for traces . BoD, Norderstedt 2013, ISBN 978-3-7322-7118-4 .
  30. ↑ Magic from Pandora's Box ( Memento from December 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ↑ History of the museum on the official website , accessed January 5, 2020.

Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 45.3 "  N , 7 ° 55 ′ 11.7"  E