October 2006 - Nr. 10
This Week in Wikipedia:
The Golden Madonna of Essen
TWIG - The "front page" of online encyclopedia Wikipedia recently featured an item on the Golden Madonna of Essen, a gilded icon dated around 980 that is both the oldest known sculpture of the Virgin Mary and the oldest free-standing sculpture north of the Alps.
The Golden Madonna
Part of the treasury of the cathedral of Essen, a city along the Ruhr River in the populous western German state of North-Rhine Westphalia, it is one of the few major works of art to survive from Ottonian times (936-1024). The creator of the sculpture is unknown, but it is generally presumed to have been crafted in either Cologne to the south or Hildesheim to the north. The statue was created during the tenure of Mathilda II (971-1011), a granddaughter of Emperor Otto I, as abbess of the Essen convent.
Like the priceless bejeweled and gilded historic treasures
of Emperor Charlemagne permanently on view to visitors in the western German
city of Aachen, the Golden Madonna has long been proudly cherished by the
surrounding Ruhr region’s predominantly Catholic population. The detailed
Wikipedia account of the blue-eyed gilded icon puts it thusly: "To this day
it remains an object of veneration and symbol of identity for the population
of the Ruhr Area."
Republished with permission from "The
Week in Germany"
Links:
The full Wikipedia article Essen Cathedral Treasury (in German)
