Projects of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Free State of Thuringia, represented by the State Chancellery of Thuringia, Department of Culture and the Arts.
On top of the cabinet in the Urbino Room is a somewhat inconspicuous little triptych, a hinged wooden frame containing three pictures. The work is a copy of a famous medieval altarpiece which can be seen today in Cologne Cathedral. The altarpiece was painted in the 15th century, probably by Stephan Lochner, and depicts the Adoration of the Magi. For conservational reasons, facsimiles of the engravings from Goethe’s collection are displayed here today.
But why did Goethe own a copy of this picture? Did it have a special significance in his time? Various voices give answers to these questions.
To Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, this altarpiece was one of the most important works of art of the Middle Ages. He mentioned it several times in his writings on art history. His treatise on Art and Antiquity on the Rhine and the Main contains an exact description of the work:
„It consists of a central picture and two wings. The gold ground on all three is [...] still kept. The tapestry behind Mary is stamped and painted in bright colours. […] The figures on the main panel and the wings are oriented towards the middle, symmetrically, but with many contrasts in form and movement suggesting great diversity.“
The writer Johanna Schopenhauer was equally inspired by the Cologne altarpiece. She wrote in her account of an Excursion to the Lower Rhine and Belgium in 1828, when the identity of the artist was uncertain:
„Whatever may have been the name of the honourable man who created this painting, he has earned immortality, and all one needs to feel this with firm conviction are good eyes and a receptive mind for art and nature, without possessing any proper artistic scholarship, when one stands a while gazing upon this masterpiece. “
The painter Albrecht Dürer saw the altarpiece as early as 1520 on his visit to Cologne. He notes in his journal that he paid two silver pennies to see the painting:
„I paid the barber 2 white pennies. […] further, paid 2 white pennies to unlock the painting that Master Stefan of Cologne made. I gave the page 1 white penny, and drank 2 white pennies with my comrade.“
The altar painting was made famous by Heinrich Heine’s 1822 poem, which was later put to music by Robert Schumann in his song cycle Dichterliebe:
„Im Rhein, im schönen Strome,
Da spiegelt sich in den Welln,
Mit seinem großen Dome,
Das große, heilge Köln.
Im Dom da steht ein Bildnis,
Auf goldenem Leder gemalt;
In meines Lebens Wildnis
Hats freundlich hineingestrahlt.
Es schweben Blumen und Englein
Um unsre liebe Frau;
Die Augen, die Lippen, die Wänglein,
Die gleichen der Liebsten genau.“
Translation:
In the Rhine, that stately river,
The cathedral’s lofty stone
Is reflected in the water
With the holy town Cologne.
The cathedral holds a portrait,
On a golden ground arrayed;
In my life’s uncultured country
Its benignant light has played.
Flowers float around our Lady
And the angels glide above,
and her eyes, her lips, her beauty
are the likeness of my love.
Ernst Moritz Arndt recounts in his 1858 Travels with Baron vom Stein how Goethe and the Prussian statesman vom Stein visited the painting in Cologne Cathedral together. Arndt’s words reflect the importance of Goethe among his contemporaries:
„‘Stein is here; we’ll meet him in the cathedral’ – and thither we went straightaway. He greeted us in the most friendly way – and whom did we see not far from him? There beside him stood the greatest German of the nineteenth century, Wolfgang Goethe, looking at the Cathedral painting. […] the two great men of Germany walked marvellously side by side, as if in mutual awe […].“
Projects of the Klassik Stiftung Weimar are funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Free State of Thuringia, represented by the State Chancellery of Thuringia, Department of Culture and the Arts.