Tabernacle-altarpieces in Central Europe: Examples, Types, Iconography

A first survey of tabernacle-altarpieces in the German-speaking countries reveals that probably less than 20 specimens can be traced from the time before c. 1450; most of them are only preserved in fragments. They can be found in the north (Stralsund) as well as in middle and southern Germany and the Alpine region. Among them are large, sumptuous works like the former high altar retable of Stams monastery in Tyrol or the life-size ‘Madonna with the Stags’ in Erfurt, both from around 1370/80. The only coherent group in the corpus, however, is formed by four smaller tabernacles that probably were made for the Nuremberg convent of the Poor Clares around 1360/70. In terms of iconography, the Virgin as the Apocalyptic Woman appears remarkably often at the centre of tabernacle-altarpieces, starting with the Erfurt Madonna. A later example of this type is the large Virgin in the Sun on a pier of St Sebaldus church in Nuremberg, donated by the Imhof-family around 1440. Originally the centre of a tabernacle with wings, it stood next to and above an altar with a painted retable; thus the two works must have formed a kind of ensemble. Most of the known tabernacle-altarpieces were designed as a kind of vertical cabinet or as a tower; in the latter case, ground-plans vary between rectangle, pentagon and T-shape. Starting around mid-14th century, there are also some retables with scenic arrangements of sculptures in broad shrines that basically follow the construction of tabernacle-altarpieces.