By fortunate circumstances of transmission, a unique ensemble of liturgical and paraliturgical furnishings from the late 13th and early 14th centuries has been preserved from a former monastery in Altenberg an der Lahn. and early 14th century.
Some of these objects are now in the collection of Braunfels Castle, others are distributed among important museums between New York and St. Petersburg - each already counts in its own right as one of the absolute gems of the era.
In the exhibition "Showcase of Heaven" they can now be brought together again for the first time since the secularization of the monastery at the beginning of the 19th century. One of the most high-quality altar room furnishings of the Middle Ages can be experienced.
The centrepiece is the approximately 4.90-metre-wide convertible reredos, consisting of a shrine box, statue of the Madonna and altar wings, which, together with works of painting, sculpture and textile and goldsmith's art, produced a complex system of references of images at the altar. Since around 1330, the retable, as the centrepiece of the furnishings, adorned the main altar of the church, which was built between 1260 and 1270. The wings of the altar passed into the Städel Collection as early as 1925 and have since been part of the museum's outstanding holdings of early German painting.
The presentation in the exhibition hall of the Prints and Drawings Department makes the fascinating interplay of different pictorial media in a concrete altar room decoration of the early 14th century comprehensible. Particularly in view of the sophisticated iconography of the linen embroideries and the recently discovered original side and rear wall painting of the shrine box, questions of accessibility and close reception of images on the high altar are raised anew.
(Source: Städel Museum Frankfurt)
Further information:
http://www.staedelmuseum.de/en/exhibitions/altenberger-altar)
