Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame

Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame

File:Oeuvre Notre Dame.jpg The Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame in the building of the Cathedral Foundation. Left wing built in 1347, right wing built in 1579
Location within Strasbourg
Coordinates
Website	www.musees-strasbourg.org

The Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame (or Frauenhausmuseum in German) is the city of Strasbourg's museum for Upper Rhenish fine and decorative arts from the early Middle Ages until 1681. The museum is famous for its rich holdings of original sculptures, glass windows, architectural fragments and building plans of Strasbourg Cathedral, as well as for its considerable collection of works by Peter Hemmel von Andlau, Niclas Gerhaert van Leyden, Nikolaus Hagenauer, Ivo Strigel, Konrad Witz, Hans Baldung and Sebastian Stoskopff.

Historical overview

The Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame had been created to merge under a single roof four thematically related but differently focussed collections of all types of Upper Rhenish art until 1681. It is located in the half-Gothic, half-Renaissance core building of the Fondation de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame and in several early Baroque timber-framed houses surrounding it.

The first documentary evidence of the Strasbourg Fondation de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame dates back to 1281, and it is still responsible for the maintenance of the cathedral. Besides the building plans, which have been saved from the very beginning, they also preserve architectural parts, such as fragments of the choir screen destroyed in 1681 and the originals of the sculptures which were removed or knocked down during the French Revolution and later replaced by copies. The Société pour la conservation des monuments historiques d’Alsace (Society for the Conservation of the Historical Monuments of Alsace), for their part, had endeavored to rescue the most valuable components and decorations (altars, statues, vessels, tapestries) from churches, cloisters and chapels which had been abandoned to destruction or decay throughout Alsace.

The painting collection of the city, restored by Wilhelm von Bode as of 1890, had also focussed right from the beginning on regional masters, through the donation of the "Portrait of the canon Ambrosius Volmar Keller", a masterpiece of Hans Baldung from the private collection of Wilhelm II. Finally, in the new museum of decorative arts of the city, the "Hohenlohe Museum", works of decorative art from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Early Baroque were also exhibited. Those four collections, kept in various locations and with various points of concentration, were united in 1931 in the newly founded Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame. In 1956, after the repair of the damage caused by the bombing of Strasbourg during the war in 1944, it was re-opened in an expanded condition.

Besides the cathedral sculptures, glass windows, etc., the collection also boasts valuable components from other Strasbourg churches, such as the Temple Neuf, destroyed in 1870, the Saint-Pierre-le-Vieux Church, renovated in 1867, and the Église Sainte-Madeleine, destroyed by fire in 1904. In addition, the romanesque components (cloister, baptismal font) from Eschau and the stained glass windows from St. Peter and St. Paul's Church, Wissembourg and Mutzig are also important. Furthermore, many late gothic altars are assigned to anonymous masters of the Schongauer School.

Gallery

• Christ de Wissembourg.JPG

  Romanesque stained glass window "Head of Christ" from Wissembourg (11th or 12th century)

• Grande verrière avec Calvaire, Saint-Pierre, Saint-Maurice et la Vierge à l'Enfant Ancienne église Saint-Maurice de Mutzig, Bas-Rhin Vers 1300-1310.jpg

  Gothic stained glass window "Calvary" from Mutzig (early 14th century)

• Le Christ en croix ( MOND ).jpg

  Gothic stained glass window "Christ on the Cross" from Strasbourg (early 15th century)

• Musee-de-l-Oeuvre-Notre-Dame-Strasbourg-IMG 1453.jpg

  A romanesque relief capital on display at the museum

• StrasbourgMuséeOeuvre NotreDameArtRoman (2).JPG

  Romanesque baptismal fonts on display at the museum

• Circoncision-Chartreuse-Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame (1).jpg

  Gothic wooden relief "Circumcision of Christ", from Strasbourg (late 15th century)

• Musee-de-l-Oeuvre-Notre-Dame-Strasbourg-IMG 4015.jpg

  Statues from Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

• StrasbourgMuséeOeuvreNotreDameStatuesCathédrale (10).JPG

  Statues from Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

• Statues 'L'Église' et 'La Synagogue' de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg, original gothique conservé au Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame-2.jpg

  Ecclesia and Synagoga from Notre-Dame de Strasbourg

• Nicolaus von Leyden, Self-portrait3.JPG

  Self-portrait of Nikolaus Gerhaert

• Nicolas de Haguenau-Buste d'homme accoudé 2-Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame (2).jpg

  "Leaning Man" by Nikolaus Hagenauer

• Strasbourg, Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame 07.JPG

  Altar by Ivo Strigel

• Strasbourg, Musée de l’Oeuvre Notre-Dame 11.JPG

  "Holy Monk" by Hans Wydyz

• Vierge au jardinet, Maître rhénan anonyme, Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame.jpg

  Anonymous master: "Madonna in a Garden"

• Konrad Witz 007.jpg

  Konrad Witz: "Sts Catherine and Mary Magdalene"

• Hans Baldung 018.jpg

  Hans Baldung: "Madonna in the Vine Arbor"

• Lucas Cranach d. J., Bildnis eines jungen Mannes (1533) (2).JPG

  Lucas Cranach the Younger: "Portrait of a young Man"

• Stoskopff, L'été ou Les cinq sens.jpg

  Sebastian Stoskopff: "Summer or the Five Senses"

• StrasbourgOeuvreNotreDameArmoires (3).JPG

  17th-century cupboards

References

• Cécile Dupeux: Strasbourg, Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Éditions Scala, Paris, 1999, ISBN 2-86656-223-2 in French

External links

• Website of the Museum
• Selected works of the Museum