Museums, Colmar

3 more images

This building once served as a Dominican convent, under some linden trees (hence the name "underlinden"). This museum houses some impressive exhibits, including one of France's best collections of medieval art. Probably the most famous is the priceless Isenheim Altarpiece, inside the chapel. It also houses some artifacts from Colmar's long history. This should be on anyone's itinernary. In addition, there is a new gallery of modern art.

4 more images

A number of paintings and sculptures of the 15 and 16C are also on view in the nave and the adjacent galleries. The best paintings are by Cranach (The Melancholy) and a Female Portrait (by Hans Holbein the Elder) and what may possibly be the first still life, from 1470 (anonymous). 16C wood sculptures expand the period with works of Master H.L., Veit Wagner and others.

4 more images

The first very important artist in Colmar was also the first great engraver in Norther Europe. He is remembered here for several paintings and for many fine engravings. His most famous work is the Virgin in the Rose Bower at the Collegiate Church but there are two diptyches in the Unterlinden and some 16 panels of A Passion for which he did much of the work. Fine work by primitives lead the way to his work, these can be seen in an adjacent room of the museum by Gaspard Isenmann and Hermann Schadeberg as well as other early examples from the North.

4 more images

The most terrifying scene is in the left one of the lateral now paired panels of the rear section of the altar. It is the Temptation of St. Anthony. It relates the internal feelings that were held in those times by about disease. The Antonites were believed to be able to cure ergotism (and possibly also erysipelas or streptococcal infection) which were almost always fatal in those days. Note the sick patient in the bottom left corner with a swollen figure and feet being replaced by a demon. The right picture is a visit by St. Anthony to the hermit St. Paul. The central tryptich is by Nicolas de Haguenau with St. Augustin on the right and St. Jerome on the left. In the lower right panel kneels a church leader one Guy Guers, while at the base of the central panel are two offerants.

4 more images

When the outer surface of the retable was originally opened, a set of four panels came into view. Today the lateral pair are shown together and nearby the middle two are presented. The viewer must supply the sequence as he wishes. In correct sequence the first on the left is an Annunciation, next an Angel's Concert, then a Mary and Child Newborn Alone and lastly an unusually Rising from the Tomb. Each panel is both restrained and intense and subtly has associated stories in the scenes. Enjoy this.

2 more images

The outer side of the closed multiple paneled altar piece has a large central painting of the Crucifixion. On the right side of the painting is St. Joseph supporting a distraught Mary and next to the Cross a kneeling Magdalene. On the left of Jesus is John the Baptist (two years dead) with a lamb. In a lateral painting to the right is St. Sebastian.

4 more images

The Issenheim Altar was made between 1512-16 by Mathis Gothart (known as Grunewald) and was the Altar piece of the of a convent following the rule of Saint Augustine (the Antonites) in that town. In 1793 the set of works was moved to the place Unterlinden and installed in the ex-Dominican chapel which in 1849 became a museum containing the Grunewald masterpiece and works by Schongauer and others. The altar is nicely detached so that one can move among the several wings and approximate the progression of a suppliant. Starting from the outside of the retable which has three panels with a two panel predella Entombment past the second level made up of a set of four panels (originally in one group of 4) now shown as two pairs of important large pictures and on to the third level at the rear with lateral paintings and a central tryptich of sculptured wooden figures while below there is a carved predella of Jesus and the Apostles.

2 more images

The Museum was started in 1849 by Louis Hugot who managed to keep the building from demolition and who subsequently was able to instal there works by Schongauer and works from many religious communities around Colmar. as well a Roman mosaic from Bergheim.Although theveryone comes primarily to see the Isenheim Alterpiece there are a variety of other items in the collection ranging from primitive painted panels to 20C works by such as Picasso and one should also enjoy the cloister which is where you enter the museum.