DOI article:
Woziński, Andrzej: O nietypowych cechach nastawy ołtarzowej Michała z Augsburga w kościele Mariackim w Gdańsku
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.43645#0044
Andrzej znanych wówczas planet. Wyjaśnienie ich znaczenia w tym retabulum wymaga
Wbz/ńsłi szerszego wywodu57.
On Untypical Features ofthe Retable by Michael of Augsburg in StMary’s
Church in Gdańsk
The high altar retable in St Marys Church in Gdańsk was created in 1510-1517. His-
torical records as well as the stylistic homogeneity of the scenes painted on the three wing
pairs allow to judge that the work followed an overall artistic and ideological concept. It is
generally supposed that the retable was subsequently complemented with Christological
scenes painted on the back of the corpus of the retable, although they actually stylistically
echoed the remaining painterly sections. It can be thus assumed that the elaboration of
the main body back had been planned from the onset of the project.
Michael of Augsburg’s retable shares a number of features with other mediaeval
altarpieces, however it boasts several typological and iconographic Solutions that can
be regarded as scarce or actually unique. Particularly striking are the proportions taken
by goldsmithery fragments (silver statues placed on the obverses of the internal wings)
almost equalling the sculptural parts. The statues, however, were melted in 1577. No
retable of such a significant proportion of precious metal figures has been preserved.
The closest analogy could be found in the altarpiece from the high altar in St Mary’s
Church in Liibeck completed in 1425 and known from several preserved fragments,
descriptions, and photos.
The sides of the inner wings of the Gdańsk retable, destroyed in 1945, were origi-
nally decorated with painted effigies of consołe-placed figures. Ali that remains of them
are blurred photographs. The bottom and middle parts feature men in armours; the
figures from the top one are unclear in the photos. The places where these were located
were exceptional; they echo the infrequent examples of figural decoration on the faces
of the lateral walls of the altarpiece main bodies, decoration type of south-German
origin. The presentations on the sides of the inner wings in the Gdańsk retable recall,
to a certain degree, figures placed outside some altarpiece main bodies and defined as
Schreinwachter. The role of such guards, meant to symbolically protects the altar, was
performed by holy knights. A similar function may have been exerted by the knights
on the wings of the Gdańsk retable, emphasizing with their very presence that the
place they were painted at enclosed the space containing the most precious part of the
altar, materially and ideologically.
Another intriguing feature of the Gdańsk retable is to be found in the repetitive
topics in its different openings. The so-far attempts at deciphering the content of the
Gdańsk altarpiece have not accounted for the repetition of some scenes; neither have
they pointed to analogical Solutions elsewhere. Several local examples of duplicating
scenes are presented, nonę of them, however, equalling the altarpiece of Michael of
Augsburg in the number of repeated topics.
57 Przedstawiam go w mojej książce, zob. Andrzej Woziński, W świetle gwiazd. Sztuka
i astrologia w Gdańsku w latach 1450-1550 (Gedania Artistica, 2), Gdańsk 2011, s. 77-160.
42
Wbz/ńsłi szerszego wywodu57.
On Untypical Features ofthe Retable by Michael of Augsburg in StMary’s
Church in Gdańsk
The high altar retable in St Marys Church in Gdańsk was created in 1510-1517. His-
torical records as well as the stylistic homogeneity of the scenes painted on the three wing
pairs allow to judge that the work followed an overall artistic and ideological concept. It is
generally supposed that the retable was subsequently complemented with Christological
scenes painted on the back of the corpus of the retable, although they actually stylistically
echoed the remaining painterly sections. It can be thus assumed that the elaboration of
the main body back had been planned from the onset of the project.
Michael of Augsburg’s retable shares a number of features with other mediaeval
altarpieces, however it boasts several typological and iconographic Solutions that can
be regarded as scarce or actually unique. Particularly striking are the proportions taken
by goldsmithery fragments (silver statues placed on the obverses of the internal wings)
almost equalling the sculptural parts. The statues, however, were melted in 1577. No
retable of such a significant proportion of precious metal figures has been preserved.
The closest analogy could be found in the altarpiece from the high altar in St Mary’s
Church in Liibeck completed in 1425 and known from several preserved fragments,
descriptions, and photos.
The sides of the inner wings of the Gdańsk retable, destroyed in 1945, were origi-
nally decorated with painted effigies of consołe-placed figures. Ali that remains of them
are blurred photographs. The bottom and middle parts feature men in armours; the
figures from the top one are unclear in the photos. The places where these were located
were exceptional; they echo the infrequent examples of figural decoration on the faces
of the lateral walls of the altarpiece main bodies, decoration type of south-German
origin. The presentations on the sides of the inner wings in the Gdańsk retable recall,
to a certain degree, figures placed outside some altarpiece main bodies and defined as
Schreinwachter. The role of such guards, meant to symbolically protects the altar, was
performed by holy knights. A similar function may have been exerted by the knights
on the wings of the Gdańsk retable, emphasizing with their very presence that the
place they were painted at enclosed the space containing the most precious part of the
altar, materially and ideologically.
Another intriguing feature of the Gdańsk retable is to be found in the repetitive
topics in its different openings. The so-far attempts at deciphering the content of the
Gdańsk altarpiece have not accounted for the repetition of some scenes; neither have
they pointed to analogical Solutions elsewhere. Several local examples of duplicating
scenes are presented, nonę of them, however, equalling the altarpiece of Michael of
Augsburg in the number of repeated topics.
57 Przedstawiam go w mojej książce, zob. Andrzej Woziński, W świetle gwiazd. Sztuka
i astrologia w Gdańsku w latach 1450-1550 (Gedania Artistica, 2), Gdańsk 2011, s. 77-160.
42