Collection presentation: Bern's Lost Altar. Niklaus Manuel and the Panels of Dominican Church in Bern

(Friday) (Sunday)

Research today acknowledges that the three panels were formerly part of an altarpiece. The fact that a relationship between the panels was ever the subject of academic debate, however, is a result of the fate of this set of paintings on which the exhibition is focusing. The process of a loss of correlation between individual panels is not a matter of course and is instead tied to a fundamental reassignment of the paintings. The exhibition zeroes in on precisely this process of redefining pictures, the metamorphosis of altarpiece panels into individual works of art. Manuel’s panels at the Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, were originally not considered individual artworks but parts of a kind of “sacred piece of furniture” that fulfilled specific functions in Christian practice and worship. If we dare to believe that a reconstruction of the high altarpiece of Berne’s former Dominican Church was possible, at the very least one of the outer panels together with the complete centerpiece of carved figures have been lost. The rest has been passed down to us in a more or less fragmentary state. The painted panels that have survived did so not as visual instruments serving Catholic religious practices but as works of art by Niklaus Manuel. This mode of interpretation secured their existence as objects of European material culture. The panels were detached from the altarpiece structure, which is now lost, and individually framed, sold, and preserved. As a leading masterpiece of Bernese art from around 1500 and by the city’s leading artist, the panels were purchased for the Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, by the Gottfried Keller Foundation and Berne’s Burgergemeinde.

Kunstmuseum Bern
Hodlerstrasse 12
3000 Bern
Switzerland
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Art, Museum, city,

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Collection presentation: Bern's Lost Altar. Niklaus Manuel and the Panels of Dominican Church in Bern Kunstmuseum Bern Main address: Kunstmuseum Bern Hodlerstrasse 12 3000 Bern, Switzerland Kunstmuseum Bern Hodlerstrasse 12 3000 Bern, Switzerland Research today acknowledges that the three panels were formerly part of an altarpiece. The fact that a relationship between the panels was ever the subject of academic debate, however, is a result of the fate of this set of paintings on which the exhibition is focusing. The process of a loss of correlation between individual panels is not a matter of course and is instead tied to a fundamental reassignment of the paintings. The exhibition zeroes in on precisely this process of redefining pictures, the metamorphosis of altarpiece panels into individual works of art. Manuel’s panels at the Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, were originally not considered individual artworks but parts of a kind of “sacred piece of furniture” that fulfilled specific functions in Christian practice and worship. If we dare to believe that a reconstruction of the high altarpiece of Berne’s former Dominican Church was possible, at the very least one of the outer panels together with the complete centerpiece of carved figures have been lost. The rest has been passed down to us in a more or less fragmentary state. The painted panels that have survived did so not as visual instruments serving Catholic religious practices but as works of art by Niklaus Manuel. This mode of interpretation secured their existence as objects of European material culture. The panels were detached from the altarpiece structure, which is now lost, and individually framed, sold, and preserved. As a leading masterpiece of Bernese art from around 1500 and by the city’s leading artist, the panels were purchased for the Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, by the Gottfried Keller Foundation and Berne’s Burgergemeinde. Book tickets