An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, or a set of them, the word can also be used of the whole ensemble behind an altar, otherwise known as a reredos, including what is often an elaborate frame for the central image or images. Altarpieces were one of the most important products of Christian art especially from the late Middle Ages to the era of the Counter-Reformation.
Colmar is a city and commune in the Haut-Rhin department and Grand Est region of north-eastern France. The third-largest commune in Alsace, it is the seat of the prefecture of the Haut-Rhin department and of the subprefecture of the Colmar-Ribeauvillé arrondissement.
Martin Schongauer, also known as Martin Schön or Hübsch Martin by his contemporaries, was an Alsatian engraver and painter. He was the most important printmaker north of the Alps before Albrecht Dürer, a younger artist who collected his work. Schongauer is the first German painter to be a significant engraver, although he seems to have had the family background and training in goldsmithing which was usual for early engravers.
The Isenheim Altarpiece is an altarpiece sculpted and painted by, respectively, the Germans Nikolaus of Haguenau and Matthias Grünewald in 1512–1516. It is on display at the Unterlinden Museum at Colmar, Alsace, in France. It is Grünewald's largest work and is regarded as his masterpiece. It was painted for the Monastery of St. Anthony in Issenheim near Colmar, which specialized in hospital work. The Antonine monks of the monastery were noted for their care of plague sufferers as well as for their treatment of skin diseases, such as ergotism. The image of the crucified Christ is pitted with plague-type sores, showing patients that Jesus understood and shared their afflictions. The veracity of the work's depictions of medical conditions was unusual in the history of European art.
The Unterlinden Museum is located in Colmar, in the Alsace region of France. The museum, housed in a 13th-century Dominican religious sisters' convent and a 1906 former public baths building, is home to the Isenheim Altarpiece by the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald and features a large collection of local and international artworks and manufactured artifacts from prehistorical to contemporary times. It is a Musée de France. With roughly 200,000 visitors per year, the museum is the most visited in Alsace.
Alexandre-Louis Leloir was a French painter specializing in genre and history paintings.
Joseph-Théodore Deck was a 19th-century French potter, an important figure in late 19th-century art pottery. Born in Guebwiller, Haut-Rhin, he began learning the trade in his early 20s, moving to Paris at age 24. In 1856 he established his own faience (earthenware) workshop, Joseph-Théodore Deck Ceramique Française, and began to experiment with styles from Islamic pottery, and in particular the Iznik style.
The Église Saint-Martin is a Roman Catholic church located in Colmar, Haut-Rhin, France. It is in the principal Gothic architectural style. Because of its past as a collegiate church, is also known als Collégiale Saint-Martin, and because of its large dimensions, as Cathédrale Saint-Martin, although Colmar had never been the seat of a bishopric.
The Master of the Stauffenberg Altarpiece is a 15th-century Anonymous Master from Alsace or nearby who was stylistically influenced by Rogier van der Weyden.
CasparIsenmann was a Gothic painter from Alsace. As the municipal painter of his hometown Colmar and the creator of a major altarpiece for the prestigious St Martin's Church, he was an important representative of the Upper Rhenish school of painting of the mid-15th century and a probable master of Martin Schongauer.
The Buhl Altarpiece is a late 15th-century, Gothic altarpiece of colossal dimensions now kept in the parish church Église Saint-Jean-Baptiste of Buhl in the Haut-Rhin département of France. It was painted by followers of Martin Schongauer, most probably for the convent of the Dominican sisters of Saint Catherine of Colmar, and moved to its present location in the early 19th century. It is classified as a Monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.
Wilhelm Stetter (1487–1552) was a German Renaissance painter from Alsace. He was born and died in Strasbourg.
Jost Haller was a 15th-century Gothic painter from Alsace, active in the years 1440–1470, first established in Strasbourg, then in Metz, and in Saarbrücken. He is also called The painter of the knights [not "The painter of knights", or Le peintre de chevaliers].
Jules Théophile Schuler was a French painter and illustrator in the Romantic style. He gave his name to an art award established in 1938.
The Chariot of Death is a large allegorical painting by Théophile Schuler. It was gifted to the Unterlinden Museum by the artist in 1862. Its inventory number is 88.RP.454. The painting is considered one of the most emblematic of the collection. A drawn copy of the painting is kept in the Cabinet des estampes et des dessins.
Portrait of a Woman is a c. 1515 oil painting by the German artist Hans Holbein the Elder. It is now in the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, France. Its inventory number is 80.1.1. In the 19th-century, the painting used to belong to count Karol Lanckoroński, of Vienna. In 2016, it was the only painting by Holbein the Elder owned by a public collection in France.
Madonna of the Rose Bower is a monumental 1473 panel painting by the German artist, Martin Schongauer, depicting Mary and Christ Child in a hortus conclusus, surrounded by roses and finches. The painting is kept in the former Dominican Church of Colmar in Alsace, a large Gothic church formerly of the Dominican Order, built in the 13th and 14th century. It is classified as a Monument historique, as an object, by the French Ministry of Culture since 1978.
Normand Landscape is an oil painting by the French artist Pierre Bonnard, from 1920. It is held in the collection of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Alsace. It depicts a landscape in Normandy, in a vertical format. The motif was painted from memory in the artist's studio, not en plein air. The painting was bought as soon as it was finished, in 1920, by the gallery Bernheim-Jeune, from which it was bought six decades later by the Société Schongauer which administers the Colmar museum.
Still-Life with a Parrot is a 1907 oil painting by the French artist Robert Delaunay, today in the collection of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Alsace. A first version of the same motif, but in a more mosaic-like design, nowadays belongs to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain. The Colmar painting is a manifestation of the young artist's interest in Michel-Eugène Chevreul's theories on colours, and one of his first experimental works.
The Valley of the Creuse, Sunset is a 1889 oil painting by the French artist Claude Monet, today in the collection of the Unterlinden Museum in Colmar, Alsace. It depicts the river Creuse at sunset in a landscape near Fresselines, where the poet Maurice Rollinat had a house in which Monet was a guest from March to May 1889. During that time, Monet painted fourteen views of the site where the Petite Creuse flows into the Grande Creuse, including the Colmar painting. They were all shown together in an exhibition in Paris in June 1889.
