The Unterlinden Museum (French: ''Musée Unterlinden'') is located in Colmar, in the

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

region of France. The museum, housed in a 13th-century Dominican religious sisters'

convent A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglic ...

and a 1906 former public baths building, is home to the

Isenheim Altarpiece 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 Grünewal ...

by the German Renaissance painter

Matthias Grünewald Matthias Grünewald ( – 31 August 1528) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. His first name is also given ...

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.

History

Chapel of Musée d'Unterlinden with Isenheim altarpiece

The museum was established in 1849, the buildings (abandoned following the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

) having been saved by the ''Societé Schongauer'' (founded in 1847 by Louis Hugot) and bequeathed to it by the municipality. The collection at first centered around a Roman

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

found in Bergheim, Haut-Rhin, still displayed today, and plaster copies of antique sculptures on loan from the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

. In 1852, the focus of the collection shifted dramatically, when the Isenheim Altarpiece as well as most of the other large painted and/or sculpted altarpieces from former Colmar or Upper Rhenish churches,

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The con ...

s and

monasteries A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer which ...

, were installed in the building. The museum opened its doors to the general public in the following year, 1853.Description of the museum on culture.gouv.fr
/ref> In the 1950s and again in the 1980s, the need appeared for the museum, which had seen a steady growth of the number of its displayed artefacts in every domain, to gain more space by using available surface more appropriately, and was each time addressed as far as the classified character of the building in itself could allow. When that same need appeared again in the 2000s, the city of Colmar decided to add supplementary buildings. As the museum's official website used to state before the opening of the 2015 extension : "Today the museum covers a surface area of about 5,620 m², including exhibition spaces (4,000 m²), conservation, storage and other work areas (1,370 m²), and offices (250 m²)". Between 2009 and 2015, the adjacent, Neo-Baroque former baths building was transformed into an annex of the museum, connected to the old building by a series of underground exhibition rooms. A new building for temporary exhibitions was also added while the former cloister was once again thoroughly renovated and its interior spaces redistributed. The total area open to the public was thus enlarged to , at an official cost of 44 M€, although it appeared at the end of the year 2016 that the final cost was actually of 48,7 M€, a fact which infuriated Colmar's long-time mayor, Gilbert Meyer. The opening of the enlarged museum took place on 12 December 2015.

The collections

Famous above all for the

, it also displays a major collection of Upper Rhenish medieval and early Renaissance art, among which the Colmar native

Martin Schongauer Martin Schongauer (c. 1450–53, Colmar – 2 February 1491, Breisach), also known as Martin Schön ("Martin beautiful") or Hübsch Martin ("pretty Martin") by his contemporaries, was an Alsatian engraver and painter. He was the most important ...

occupies the most prominent place with several altarpieces and a large number of original drawings,

engraving Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...

s and

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas tha ...

s. Other famous names include Albrecht Dürer (engravings only),

Lucas Cranach the Elder Lucas Cranach the Elder (german: Lucas Cranach der Ältere ; – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is kno ...

and

Hans Holbein the Elder Hans Holbein the Elder ( , ; german: Hans Holbein der Ältere; – 1524) was a German painter. Life Holbein was born in free imperial city of Augsburg (Germany), and died in Issenheim, Alsace (now France). He belonged to a celebrated family o ...

as well as local painters

Caspar Isenmann Caspar (or Kaspar) Isenmann (french: Gaspard Isenmann) 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 represen ...

, Jost Haller and Wilhelm Stetter. Most of the earliest paintings, however, are the work of anonymous German, Alsatian or Swiss masters, such as the Master of the Stauffenberg Altarpiece. Other sections displayed by the museum are : local and international archeology; medieval, Renaissance and baroque sculpture (religious as well as profane) and stained glass; weapons, furniture, music instruments and toys from the 14th to the 19th century; ancient, ornate wine barrels (a collection donated by Jean-Jacques Waltz in 1927); modern and contemporary art. Because of a general lack of space, this last collection, although very well furnished (works by

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Jean Dubuffet Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a ...

, Fernand Léger, Serge Poliakoff,

Georges Rouault Georges Henri Rouault (; 27 May 1871, Paris – 13 February 1958) was a French painter, draughtsman and print artist, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Childhood and education Rouault was born in Paris into a ...

, Pierre Bonnard,

Robert Delaunay Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...

Otto Dix Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix (; 2 December 1891 – 25 July 1969) was a German painter and printmaker, noted for his ruthless and harshly realistic depictions of German society during the Weimar Republic and the brutality of war. Along with George ...

, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and others) had only seldom been displayed in its entirety. The 2015 enlargement of the building by the Swiss architects

Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

has explicitly been meant to address this problem.

Expansion

In order to renovate the museum and provide more space to its collections, in 2009 the Colmar municipality organized a design competition, and eventually selected the Swiss architects

Herzog & de Meuron Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd.,
" Herzog & de Meuron. Retrieved on 11 October 2012. "Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd. R ...

to design the renovation project. The new venue, which almost doubles the floor area of the old Unterlinden museum, was inaugurated January 23, 2016 by the President of France François Hollande.

Gallery

Musée Unterlinden (Colmar) (3).JPG, Main entrance of the museum File:Bains municipaux de Colmar-9841.jpg, New aisle of the museum, the former public baths Cloister of Unterlinden Museum, Colmar.jpg, The former cloister, now a courtyard Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar, mosaïque gallo-romaine de Bergheim, Haut-Rhin ( détail ).jpg,

Gallo-Roman Gallo-Roman culture was a consequence of the Romanization of Gauls under the rule of the Roman Empire. It was characterized by the Gaulish adoption or adaptation of Roman culture, language, morals and way of life in a uniquely Gaulish context ...

from Bergheim, Haut-Rhin (detail) Romanesque capital, Merman, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar.jpg, Romanesque capital with

merman Mermen, the male counterparts of the mythical female mermaids, are legendary creatures, which are male human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down, but may assume normal human shape. Sometimes they are described as hideous and other ...

Alsace, Haut-Rhin, Colmar, Musée d'Unterlinden, La Vierge de Niedermorschwihr, vers 1500.jpg, Upper Rhenish Master, Madonna with Child aka. ''Virgin of Niedermorschwihr'' Retable de Bergheim.jpg, Veit Wagner (attributed to), ''Bergheim altarpiece'' (detail) Gaspard Isenmann, L’Entrée du Christ à Jérusalem, La Dernière Cène.jpg, Caspar (or Gaspard) Isenmann, ''Entry into Jerusalem and Last Supper'' Musée Unterlinden - Martin Schongauer - retable d'Orlier - Annonciation (1472) (1).jpg,

, Orlier Altarpiece: ''Annunciation'' Hans Holbein l'Ancien, Portrait de femme.jpg,

, ''Portrait of a Lady'' Cranach, Lucas d. Ä. - Die Melancholie - 1532.jpg,

, ''Melancholy'' RuckersColmar-edit.jpg, Ruckers harpsichord from

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to cultu ...

, built 1624 Musée Unterlinden - Théophile Schuler - Le Char de la Mort (1848) (2).jpg,

Théophile Schuler Jules Théophile Schuler (18 June 1821 – 26 January 1878) was a French painter and illustrator in the Romantic style. He gave his name to an art award established in 1938. Life The son of a pastor, he studied painting in his hometown, int ...

, " The Chariot of Death'' (1848–1851) Monet - Das Tal der Creuse bei Sonnenuntergang.jpg,

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. Durin ...

, ''Creuse Valley at Sundown'' Colmar sun dial 1582.jpg, Sun dial (1582) Colmar commemorative cross 1762.jpg, Commemorative cross (1762)

References

Sources

*''Le Musée Unterlinden de Colmar'', Sylvie Lecoq-Ramond ormer director& Pantxika Béguerie irector as of 2008

Éditions Albin Michel Éditions Albin Michel is a French publisher. In January 2022, the new director is Anna Pavlowitch, the daughter of Paul Pavlowitch, Romain Gary and Jean Seberg's nephew. History It was founded in 1900 by Albin Michel. They published, first, Ro ...

, Paris, 1991.

External links

*
Unterlinden Museum on musees-alsace.org

Unterlinden Museum on the Colmar Tourist Office
{{Authority control Art museums and galleries in France Museums in Colmar Museums established in 1849 Herzog & de Meuron buildings 1849 establishments in France