Solothurn Madonna
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| Solothurn Madonna |
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| Hans Holbein the Younger , 1522 |
| Oil on linden wood |
| 143.5 x 104.9 cm |
| Solothurn Art Museum |
The Solothurn Madonna is a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), created in Basel in 1522 . The painting shows the Mother of God with the baby Jesus, enthroned in a vaulted niche, accompanied by Saints Martin and Ursus . St. Martin, depicted in episcopal regalia, hands alms to a beggar, of whom only the face and part of the head are visible. The opposite of him arranged St. Ursus is shown as a knight in armor.
The painting, originally made for an unknown church interior, was rediscovered in 1864 in the All Saints Chapel in Grenchen , a town near Solothurn, in a poor state of preservation. It has been owned by the community of Solothurn since 1879 and is kept in the Solothurn Art Museum. The painting has been named the Solothurn Madonna after this location since the late 19th century . In addition to the Darmstadt Madonna , the Solothurn Madonna is Holbein's second large surviving Madonna portrait.
Image description
Composition and Figures
The Madonna sits upright in the middle of an architecture that suggests an arched passage or window. All the figures shown are located below this semicircular arched architecture, which is closed off by iron struts running across both in front of the arched niche and behind it, as well as being divided in the middle by a perpendicular strut and thus defines the depth of the pictorial space.
The receding lines of the central perspective, which is only shifted slightly to the left from the center of the picture, lead to a vanishing point in a robe pin with which the wide dark blue coat of the Madonna is held together in front of the breast. The cloak flows in loose folds far on both sides over the indicated bench down to the steps below the Madonna and thus laterally delimits the pictorial space reserved for the Madonna and the baby Jesus. Mary embraces the baby Jesus sitting naked on her lap with both hands. Her somewhat absent gaze is directed downwards at the child who, looking diagonally forward out of the picture, seems to fixate on a point next to the viewer. From the left leg of the baby Jesus flows down from the slightly opened cloak of Mary, Mary's dress, creating an optical connection between the child and the two coats of arms woven into the carpet visible at the bottom of the picture. A third coat of arms is only hinted at and is covered by Mary's coat.
To the right of Maria stands St. Ursus , slightly turned towards the viewer, with his back to the stone pillar that supports the arcade arch. He is depicted as a knight in iron armor , which is designed as a grooved armor . Where adorned with a white ostrich feather helmet , the visor is folded back so that the face of the mustachioed saint is recognizable. The knight's right leg is covered by the bench covered by the Madonna's cloak, the left foot stands on a step to the right below the pedestal, on which the monogram HH and the year 1522 are engraved. St. Ursus' left hand includes the hilt of a sword, the pommel of which is aimed at the intersection of the front iron struts. With his right hand the knight holds a red flag with a Thebaic cross , whereby the tip of the flagpole as the only object of the painting breaks out of the picture space defined by the arched niche and rises up to just below the upper edge of the picture.
Opposite St. Ursus, on the left side of the picture, also in front of a stone pillar, there is another saint in a bishop's robe with miter , who, according to current research, represents St. Martin - earlier interpretations saw St. Nicholas in him . The saint grips his bishop's staff with his left hand , the decorated tip of which forms a counterweight to the Thebaan flag of St. Ursus. He looks down at his right hand, which is holding three coins. St. Martin seems to be putting this down in a wooden bowl, which a beggar kneeling behind the bench, who is covered up to his head and hand with Maria's begging bowl, is handing it to him. Due to a damaged area in the lower left corner of the painting, it is not possible to tell whether the holy bishop is on the same level as St. Ursus.
The figures do not look at each other and do not directly relate to one another. However, Mary and the two saints are connected by an imaginary circle that follows the front edge of the semicircular arched niche. Another imaginary circle, which follows the rear edge of this arch, only encloses the faces of Maria and child as a hidden nimbus - a compositional principle that Holbein perfected in the Darmstadt Madonna , which was later completed .
The portrayal of Mary was identified in early literature as a portrait of Holbein's wife Elsbeth and compared to the painting of Holbein's family showing his wife and the painter's two older children. This view is now considered outdated: on the one hand, after Zetter's "restoration", the face of the Madonna had become an "amalgam of Nazarene ideals, the beautiful Madonna image in the manner of Hans Holbein the Elder and Raphael", on the other hand the alleged resemblance served as an argument to “save the honor” of Holbein's marriage, which, according to Karel van Mander and Joachim Sandrart, was considered difficult because of Elsbeth's “viciousness”.
History of the painting
The client
It is considered likely that the painting was commissioned by the town clerk Johannes Gerster and his wife Maria Barbara Guldinknopf. The year of origin 1522 is evidenced by the designation HH / 15.22 , which can be found on the right on the front of the top step.
Original site
Nothing is known about the original installation of the painting. Use for private use is extremely unlikely due to its size. In his monograph on the Solothurn Madonna, published in 1879, Jakob Amiet assumed that it had been donated to the Solothurn St.Ursus Minster and from there on loan to the All Saints' Chapel in Grenchen around 1700.
The more recent art historical research assumes that the painting was intended to furnish the Martinskirche in Basel or the Charterhouse in Klein-Basel. The Basel client of the Madonna, Johannes Gerster, was closely connected to the Charterhouse, in which he was buried. An inventory of the Charterhouse from June 16, 1525 mentions a " plaque in which our dear women is here ", but there are no further indications that this meant Holbein's Madonna. It is therefore more likely that it will be installed in St. Martin's Church. Gerster not only belonged to the parish of St. Martin, but also held the office of provisional , a church keeper. The guild of the vintners , to which Gerster belonged, donated their stone coat of arms to the church twice, so that there is a further connection between Gerster and St. Martin's Church. The interpretation of the two depicted saints as St. Nicholas or St. Martin and St. Ursus fits together with the saints venerated in St. Martin. However, its function in the church is not known; it may be used as an altarpiece or as an epitaph.
Iconoclasm
After the painting was presumably initially in St. Martin's Church, it was probably given to the owner before the iconoclasm . Then the trace of the painting is lost. In the course of the Reformation in February 1529 there was a wave of destruction of furniture in Basel's churches and the minster . Numerous works were burned. It can be assumed that Holbein made numerous other religious panel paintings in the years before and immediately after the Reformation, which, however, were destroyed in the course of the iconoclasm.
Rediscovery
In 1864 the restorer and art collector Franz Anton Zetter rediscovered the panel painting together with other paintings in the All Saints Chapel in Grenchen in a neglected condition.
The painting was badly damaged from improper storage. Jakob Amiet reports in his monograph, published in 1879, about the picture he had found shortly before: " The wooden panel was eaten away by worms and without a frame. It was hung by a cord pulled through two holes drilled in the picture above a door. It was missing at one corner of the The picture was a piece of the painting eight inches high and four inches wide. It was entirely covered with splashed lime stains, and everywhere bore the trace of the most shameful neglect. "
Franz Anton Zetter had his work in the chapel paid for with the painting and three other panel paintings. The Augsburg restorer Eigner planed the back of the wooden panel down to a thin layer and transferred the painting to a new linden wood panel. Defects were added by the owner's workshop. Jakob Amiet emphasizes that there was no overpainting, this has even been established by a court of law.
In 1867, in the meantime the art world had become aware of the painting, the municipality of Grenchen asked for the painting back or compensation of 30,000 Swiss francs. The community went to court. Even before the trial began, Zetter, Frank Buchser and his brother, who had paid for the restoration together, gave the painting to the Kunstverein Solothurn in exchange for the restoration costs. The court, which assumed that the painting had originally been made for a location in Solothurn, awarded the picture to the Solothurn Association.
Individual evidence
- ↑ So z. B. Jakob Amiet: Hans Holbein's Madonna of Solothurn and the founder Nicolaus Conrad. Solothurn, 1879, pp. 5, 8-17, with reference to Woltmann and His
- ↑ a b Oskar Bätschmann, Pascal Griener: Hans Holbein dJ - The Solothurn Madonna. Eine Sacra Conversazione im Norden , Basel, 1998, p. 74
- ↑ Hans Holbein. The years in Basel. Exhibition catalog, Basel 2006, cat.no.83, p. 282.
- ^ Stephan Kemperdick: Retable, Epiphany, Organ Wings - Paintings for Religious Use . In: Hans Holbein. The years in Basel. Exhibition catalog, Basel 2006, p. 41.
- ↑ Jakob Amiet: Hans Holbein's Madonna of Solothurn and the founder Nicolaus Conrad. Solothurn, 1879, p. 1ff
- ^ Oskar Bätschmann, Pascal Griener: The Solothurn Madonna. Basel, 1998, p. 30ff
- ↑ Sander: On the origin story of Holbein's Madonna ... . In: Hans Holbein's Madonna in the Städel . Exhibition catalog, 2004, p. 35.
- ^ Stephan Kemperdick: Retable, Epiphany, Organ Wings - Paintings for Religious Use . In: Hans Holbein. The years in Basel. Exhibition catalog, Basel 2006, p. 37.
- ↑ The Zettersche Madonna of Solothurn Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3
- ↑ Amiet: Hans Holbein's Madonna of Solothurn. Solothurn, 1879, p. 3
- ↑ Jakob Amiet: Hans Holbein's Madonna of Solothurn and the founder Nicolaus Conrad. Solothurn, 1879, p. 3
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 3, 2016 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.
literature
- Jacob Amiet: Hans Holbein's Madonna von Solothurn and the founder Nicolaus Conrad , Solothurn, 1879. Reprint: Bibliolife, LaVergne, 2011.
- Oskar Bätschmann, Pascal Griener: Hans Holbein dJ - The Solothurn Madonna. Eine Sacra Conversazione im Norden , Basel, 1998. ISBN 3-7965-1050-7
- Jochen Sander: Hans Holbein the Elder J. and Dutch art, using the example of the "Solothurn Madonna" in: Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Archäologie und Kunstgeschichte 55 (1998), pp. 123-130.
