Изенгеймский алтарь: Шедевр Грюневальда и Хагенеу

Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald Nikolaus of Haguenau

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 iconography of the altarpiece has several unusual elements derived from closely following the accounts left by Saint Bridget of Sweden of her mystical visions. These had long had a significant influence on art, especially on depictions of the Nativity of Christ, a scene not included here.

The altarpiece's location in Alsace has meant that, in recent times, control of the work has alternated between Germany and France according to the fortunes of war. Following the Franco Prussian war of 1870 71 and the passing of control to Germany, German writers developed the concept that the altarpiece somehow represented the essential character of the German nation. The work subsequently became an object of extraordinary scenes of veneration in Munich during its temporary relocation there during the First World War, and again when Alsace passed back into French hands at the end of the War. It also provided the basis for Paul Hindemith's modernist opera Mathis der Maler. In the later 1930s, it appears to have suffered a temporary decline in official esteem in Germany as a result of the National Socialists’ branding of both Expressionism and of Hindemith's work as "degenerate". Due to renovation work in the former convent and until April 2015, the Isenheim Altarpiece was on view in the local Dominican Church, located about 200 metres from the Unterlinden Museum. This temporary transfer offered an exceptional and unprecedented opportunity to present, alongside Grünewald and Haguenau's monumental masterwork, all three painted works by the Colmar native Martin Schongauer held in Colmar: the Orlier Altarpiece (1470–1475), the Altarpiece of the Dominicans (c. 1480) and the Virgin of the Rose Bush (1473). The altarpiece depicting Saint Catherine and Saint Lawrence (c. 1510) and sculptures from the Late Middle Ages rounded out the presentation.

In mid 2022, the altarpiece was re shown at the Unterlinden Museum after it underwent cleaning and restoration by a team of restorers led by Anthony Pontabry. Haguenau's sculptures were restored in the polychrome wood restoration workshop in Paris of the Center for Research and Restoration of Museums of France by a team of sculpture restorers led by Juliette Levy. A study had been conducted by the Research Centre of the Musées de France in 2014 when they determined the state of the altarpiece and established the protocol for its restoration.