The Crucifixion of Christ and the donor couple van der Molen Soest, c. 1300 Stained glass 57.4 x 38.9 cm; 47.5 x 39.2 cm Transferred from the Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), Cologne, in 1930–1932, inv. M 660, M 614 3 The figures of Christ, Mary and John on one pane and the donor couple on the other are clearly distinguished by the contrast between the stained glass and the colourless grisaille background. Especially blue, yellow and red glass was used to create the coloured sections. The green of the cross, symbolic of the Tree of Life and found nowhere else, emphasises this central Christian symbol. The donors are backed by a light blue lozenge, whose hard geometric form is broken up by undulating text scrolls. The two stained-glass paintings belong to a cycle created around 1300 as a joint donation by several couples from the Soest citizenry. It is not known for which church the panes were intended. They may have been for the Romanesque predecessor of St. Paul’s Church in Soest, which was replaced by a new Gothic building in 1350 (Landolt-Wegener). Three panes with pairs of donors have survived in the windows of St. Paul’s, and two more are in the museums of Altena Castle. Originally, each donor couple was probably associated with a saint or a biblical scene, but the Crucifixion is the only biblical scene that has survived. A former placement of this Crucifixion above the donor pane preserved in the Museum Schnütgen is unlikely: while the delicate tendrils of the Crucifixion are modelled in negative space in black vitreous paint, the contours of the leaves and grapes with their thicker stalks on the donor pane are set against a hatched background. There are stylistic correspondences for both in the other windows. It can therefore be assumed that the Crucifixion was placed over a donor portrait with a matching background. The donor pane, on the other hand, forms a separate group within the cycle together with another pane in St. Paul’s Church. Thanks to the inscriptions, the couples on these pendants can be identified as Metges (?) and Godefridus van der Molen, as well as Druda and Gota Medebecke, two related families in Soest, documented shortly before 1300. All the other donor couples also seem to have come from wealthy Soest families – two of the men were probably aldermen, and one may have been mayor around 1300. It is striking that the women are shown on the left side of the image, which is hierarchically higher in the Christian faith, to the right of Christ. Whether this is an analogy to the fixed placement of Mary and John on the right and left of the cross, respectively, cannot be determined without the missing biblical depictions. Von Falke/Creutz 1910, 8. – Oidtmann 1912, 159. – Landolt-Wegener 1959, 33–37. – Lymant 1982, 46–49, nos. 25, 26. – Cat. Himmelslicht 1998, 204–205, nos. 34.1–2 (Carola Hagnau). – Wittekind 2007, 199–200. – Cat. Goldene Pracht 2012, 392–393, no. 225 (Petra Marx). Jule Wölk 42
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