Wiener Neustädter Altar

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Festival side of the Wiener Neustädter Altar

The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna , also called "Friedrichsaltar", is a pentaptych , a convertible altar with a main shrine, two movable outer and two movable inner wings. The shrine is decorated with sculptures , the front sides of the inner wings are decorated with reliefs , the other sides of the wing with paintings. The carvings are partly colored, partly gilded. The altar is retable to Mary and All Saints .

history

The Wiener Neustädter Altar has been in the women's choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna since 1952
The weekday side from the altar

The altar is considered a donation from King Friedrich IV., Later Emperor Friedrich III. , for the church of the Cistercian monastery Neukloster in Wiener Neustadt. The inscription 1447 AEIOU is written twice on the predella of the altar . Dating to 1447, it is the oldest double-winged altar that is still preserved in Austria. AEIOU is a Habsburg motto that King Friedrich IV used as a signature. Friedrich had his residence in Wiener Neustadt and is also the founder of the Cistercian monastery. Research assumes that the retable with its shrine architecture, sculptures and paintings was made around 1447 in the Friedrichsmeister's workshop, which can probably be located in Wiener Neustadt.

The Frederick Altar remained in its original location until the 19th century. Due to economic difficulties, the new monastery was incorporated into the Heiligenkreuz Abbey in 1881 . Its abbot Heinrich Grünbeck decided to sell the reredos to the cathedral chapter of St. Stephen in Vienna in order to save it from deterioration. In 1884 the altar was moved to St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna, where it was first installed in the Apostles' Choir after a restoration in 1885. After the Second World War , the cathedral was badly damaged and the Wiener Neustädter Altar served as the high altar in the east of the nave . In 1950 he was restored again and in 1952 he was transferred to the cathedral 's women's choir . In these two renovations, the original condition of the reredos was changed due to insufficient knowledge, the harmonious appearance was significantly impaired. The last restoration lasted from 1986 to 2004, cost 1,300,000 euros and the aim was to restore the original condition.

description

The convertible altar has two movable outer and two movable inner wings, which allow a change between three sides. Both the outer wings and the back of the inner wings are painted. The fronts of the inner wings and the main shrine are carved. The carved figures of the reredos are made of linden wood, the architectural parts of spruce wood. The height of the reredos including the predella is four and a half meters, the width with the wings open about five and a half meters. This makes it one of the largest Gothic grand piano retables in Austria. Originally the altar with the cafeteria and cracks had a total height of about ten meters. The burst has been lost, the cafeteria is still in the Neuklosterkirche in Wiener Neustadt.

The basic program for the design of the altar is the All Saints Litany . This is particularly clear on the everyday and Sunday side, where more than 72 saints are depicted in 72 places. The litany begins with the invocation of the Trinity and Mary. The reredos, which is consecrated to the Holy Trinity, shows on the festive side death , the Assumption of Mary into heaven by Christ and, in addition to the coronation of Mary by God the Father, a trinitarian coronation of Mary .

Closed front side (everyday side)

wing

Scheme of the everyday page

The closed wings are divided into eight rectangular panels. On each wing there are four panels in landscape format, which are painted with depictions of saints. Each table houses a group of three. On the everyday side, colors dominate, gilding is only sparse. Infrared examinations of the wing paintings during the last restoration showed that the names of the saints originally written in black had been painted over in white. The names in the group of the three Hungarian rulers were swapped. From left to right, Emmerich, King Stephan I and King Ladislaus I are not shown, but Ladislaus I, Emmerich and Stephan I, who can also be recognized by his coat of arms.

Predella

The closed wings of the predella are decorated with painted scenes from the Passion of Christ:

Front side with open outer wings (Sunday side)

Scheme of the Sunday page

The wings are divided into 16 rectangular panels with paintings of apostles and saints in groups of three. With the eight panels on the everyday page, there are 24 panels, i.e. 72 places for saints. The fact that the number of places does not match the number of saints is due to three exceptions. In field 15 the group consists of four saints, with Anna herself third in field 19 there is a group of five and the innocent children in field 24 do not allow a numerical determination at all. Many saints could be identified with certainty through infrared images, including Heinrich II. And Sigismund of Burgundy. Some still have to be questioned, others have remained completely unknown. With one exception, there are problems with identification only in the third row from the top, i.e. with panels 9 to 12, 21 and 22, as there are no name inscriptions in this area.

Front side with open inner wings (holiday side)

Main shrine

Scheme of the holiday page

The main shrine is divided horizontally. In the upper field (I) the coronation of Mary by the Trinity is the theme. In the middle of the lower part (II), Mary sits on a throne with the baby Jesus on her lap, flanked by two angels kneeling on the armrests. Mary's feet rest on the crescent moon, whose silver-plated face is darkly oxidized. While keel arches are placed over the other scenes on the feast day side, Mary and the two female saints, who stand on either side of the throne, are located under round arches decorated with tracery. Under the feet of the saint on the left lies a crowned man armed with a bow. During the restoration in 1885, the saint was identified as Barbara by the addition of a tower . At the same time, the other saint received a sword and through this attribute became Saint Catherine .

There are three apostle figures on each side of the shrine frame. From top to bottom, John , Simon and James the Elder can be seen on the left , and Peter , Paul and Andrew on the right . There are four figures in the tracery zone above the Coronation of Mary. From left to right there are the statues of Benedict , of Our Lady as Mary of Sorrows, of Christ as Man of Sorrows and of Bernhard von Clairvaux .

wing

Reliefs with motifs from the life of Mary and Jesus are arranged on the open inner wings:

  • Left wing above: Coronation of Mary by God the Father

  • Main shrine above: Coronation of Mary by the Trinity

  • Upper right wing: Death of Mary

  • Left wing below: Nativity - left wing: Annunciation and Visitation

  • Main shrine below: St. Barbara, Mary with child, St. Catherine

  • Right wing below: Adoration of the Magi - Right wing of the Predella: Nativity and Adoration of the Magi

Predella

Shrine of the Predella

After opening the wings, the figureless shrine of the predella is visible. It has eight gothic, gold-framed tracery windows on a red background, behind which relics were kept. The year 1447 and the lettering AEIOU can be seen twice in black letters on small white boards in the upper center.

The wings of the opened predella also show motifs from the lives of Mary and Jesus:

literature

  • Ludwig von Baldass: The Viennese carved altar. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. NF IX, 1935.
  • Otto Benesch: The master of the Krainburg altar. In: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte. VII, 1930, p. 120.
  • Otto Benesch: Wallraf-Richartz yearbook. In: West German Yearbook for Art History. NF 1, 1930, p. 66.
  • Walther Buchowiecki: History of Painting in Vienna. In: History of the City of Vienna. New series VIII, p. 24.
  • Otto Demus: The Master of Gerlamos. In: Yearbook of the Art History Collections in Vienna. NF XII, 1938, p. 103.
  • Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh: The Styrian painting schools up to the middle of the 15th century. In: The Joanneum. 3, 1943, p. 217.
  • Karl Oettinger: Master of the Friedrichsaltar from 1447. In: Yearbook of the Prussian art collection. 58, 1937, p. 227 ff.
  • Otto Pächt: Austrian Gothic panel painting. Augsburg u. a. 1929, p. 71.
  • Alfred Stange: German Gothic painting. Volume 11: Austria and the East German settlement area from Danzig to Transylvania in the period from 1400 to 1500. Munich / Berlin 1961, p. 33 f.
  • Erich Strohmer: The painting of the Gothic in Vienna. In: Richard Kurt Donin : History of the fine arts in Vienna. Volume 2: Gothic. Vienna 1955, p. 190.
  • Marlene Zykan: St. Stephen's Cathedral. Vienna / Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-552-03316-5 .
  • Rudolf Bachleitner (ed.): The St. Stephen's Cathedral. History, monuments, reconstruction. Exhibition organized by the Cathedral and Metropolitan Church of St. Stephan in the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Sept.-Nov. 1948. Vienna 1948, p. 63. No. 199, 200.
  • History and description of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Edited by Hans Tietze. With plan photos by Michael Engelhart (= Austrian Art Topography. 23). Vienna 1931, p. 273 ff.
  • Master of the Friedrich Altar from 1447 . 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. 108 .
  • Austrian Gallery Belvedere (Ed.): The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephan in Vienna. Vienna 2004.

Web links

Commons : Wiener Neustädter Altar  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephan in Vienna. P. 7.
  2. ^ The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephan in Vienna. P. 9.
  3. ^ The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephan in Vienna. P. 15.
  4. ^ The Wiener Neustädter Altar in St. Stephan in Vienna. P. 17.

Coordinates: 48 ° 12 ′ 30 ″  N , 16 ° 22 ′ 22 ″  E