Buxheim choir stalls

When the hospital in Kent was dissolved, the choir stalls were bought back by the county of Swabia in 1980 for 450,000 pounds sterling, which is roughly equivalent to a price of 1.05 million euros.

In addition to Italian influences, the stalls of the canons' monastery in Sitten in Switzerland are worth mentioning, where Bilstein had admired the cheeks with plant decoration and angel heads and had them similarly realized in Gdansk.

[3] The prior commissioned the Tyrolean sculptor Ignaz Waibl to sculpt the new choir stalls and Master Peter from Memmingen to do the carpentry work.

[7] In the previous years, Prior Petrus von Schneit had already felled around 200 oak trees in the monastery's own forests and had the wood stored.

In the same year, master locksmith Georg Eberhard the Younger from Memmingen made the lock, the fittings and the door hinges for the portal and was paid 60 guilders for his work.

On September 1, 1886, Edward Howley Palmer, the director of the Bank of England, bought the choir stalls at auction for 3500 pounds and donated them to the Sisters of St. Saviour's Hospital in London, who had them painted with black lacquer.

At an international symposium on conservation issues in the summer of 1979, he told the head of the restoration workshops of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, Dr. Karl-Ludwig Dasser, who immediately took an interest in the stalls.

As time was short to dismantle the chair, the auction house Sotheby's was commissioned to sell it at an estimated price of 450,000 pounds sterling.

The Free State of Bavaria, which was certainly interested in the chair, was unable to create the budgetary conditions to pay the purchase price in such a short space of time.

In order to avoid another auction and thus possibly the complete dismemberment of the stalls, Georg Simnacher finally agreed by telephone at Dasser's request that the district of Swabia would act as the buyer, despite the unclear financial risks.

[15] After the purchase was completed, Edmund Melzl and Christoph Müller, restorers from the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, traveled to Hythe and documented the dismantling.

On December 4, 1980, the community greeted the garlanded container on a special truck with the ringing of bells and brass band music.

The schoolchildren were given time off school to receive the choir stalls and were able to celebrate their arrival together with the adults in the monastery courtyard of the former Charterhouse.

Georg Simnacher held talks with the Salesians, who used the former monastery church of the Carthusians for worship, and in March 1993 received their approval to close the rood screen.

The seat cheeks are made of acanthus carving, which ends at the top in a console-like inclined half-figure that can be assigned to one of four different types.

The pedestals are decorated with acanthus tendrils, which form in the middle into partly evil-looking leaf masks and lend expression to the demonic.

As not only numerous attributes of saints and three sculptures have been lost, but also three names are missing from the cartouches, the order of the current arrangement had to be painstakingly reconstructed.

The Old Testament prophet Elijah, who is venerated by the Carmelites as the founder of their order, is stepping with his left foot on a severed bearded head.

According to the inscription on the cartouche, a sculpture of St. Augustine, who is usually depicted as a bishop with a flaming heart as an attribute, is said to stand in the next dorsal field.

Standing with his right foot on a lion which, according to legend, he had pulled a thorn out of its paw, he is not depicted as a cardinal, as is often the case, but as a penitent hermit.

Benedict of Nursia, with a book in his right hand on which is a cracked cup, was the founder of the Benedictines and, like Anthony the Great, is known as the father of Western monasticism.

According to the inscriptions, Romuald of Camaldoli, the founder of the Camaldolese monks, and Robert of Molesme, co-founder of the Cistercians, should stand in the next two places.

The situation is different with Norbert of Xanten, the founder of the Premonstratensians, who despite his lack of attributes can be recognized by his clothing, which indicates his existence as a regular canon and his activity as Archbishop of Magdeburg.

[30] Equally clearly identifiable is Guido of Montpellier, the founder of the Brothers of the Order of the Holy Spirit, dressed in a gown, biretta and cloak.

Teresa of Ávila, the Carmelite reformer, stands at the end of the shortened north side with a flame in front of her chest as a sign of her love of God.

The areas between the approximately one meter high apostles are filled with carved angels, some of whom are holding musical instruments, and tendrils.

A second possible source is the choir stalls of the monastery church in Weißenau, which anticipated the most important part of the iconographic program, the depiction of the founders of the order.

[3]Together with the stucco work from the workshop of Johann Schmuzer in Wessobrunn, the stalls in Buxheim are one of the earliest examples of the development of independent acanthus ornamentation in southern Germany.

Characteristic of the Buxheim stalls and their successors is not only the ornamentation, but also the rare program of the founders of the most important religious orders, which can only be found outside this group in Weißenau.

Ten chairs each were placed on the north and south sides, twelve in front of the gallery, with an entrance left open in the middle.