print
- Museum number
- 1895,0122.78
- Description
-
The new church of the Beautiful Virgin of Regensburg; the church in foreground admired by some pilgrims; in right background ruined buildings; above the church an apparition of the Beautiful Virgin in a glory; at upper left and right angels holding the imperial arms and those of Regensburg; printed from three blocks; double borderline at lower edge, the borderline on either side to a height of 227 mm. c.1519
Woodcut and letterpress
- Production date
- 1519 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 645 millimetres
-
Width: 536 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- The design based on Hieber's wooden model of the church now in the Stadtmuseum Regensburg.
Text from Bartrum 1995
Literature: C.Dodgson, II, p.247, 2; Winzinger, 246; Hollstein, 7.
This is a design of the proposed new stone church to be built on the site of the synagogue at Regensburg by the Augsburg architect Hans Hieber. His wooden model with which this corresponds is in the Städtisches Museum, Regensburg (repr. Winzinger, Anhang 30). The church was to replace the temporary wooden structure seen in 1895,0122.77. Ostendorfer further contributed to the project by painting small grisailles on the buttresses of Hieber's wooden model to give an idea of the sculpture which would decorate the church (see W. Pfeiffer, 'Pantheon', xxiv, Munich, 1966, pp.378ff).
The ruins of the Jewish quarter are seen in the background of the woodcut, and an image of the 'Beautiful Virgin', with the familiar headdress and fringed cloak seen in the icon and Altdorfer's prints of her (see 1895,0122.366; 1909,0612.3), is suspended above the church. The inscriptions, provided by the Regensburg printer Paul Kohl, tell of the circumstances surrounding the new building and refer to daily miracles on the site. The woodcut not only reproduced the architect's design for planning purposes, but was also aimed at the thousands of pilgrims visiting Regensburg at the height of the cult. Ostendorfer was paid 12 gulden for drawing the design on to the block (which today is in eight pieces in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich) and the printer, Kohl, sold 1500 impressions of the print to the council for one kreutzer each (1 gulden = 60 kreutzer). The council would presumably have sold them on for a higher price to the pilgrims. After the death of the architect Hieber in the spring of 1522, Regensburg council obtained the block for the print from his widow for 38 gulden and had 749 impressions taken from it on two occasions.
The church eventually erected on the site of the synagogue did not, however, correspond with this but was based on a modified design. After the introduction of the Reformation in 1542, it became the new Protestant parish church of Regensburg.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1995 Jun-Oct, BM, 'German Renaissance Prints, 1490-1550', no.208
- Acquisition date
- 1895
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1895,0122.78
