Peter Dell the Elder
Between Riemenschneider and the Reformation:
October 15, 2017 to January 7, 2018
In the year of the Reformation, the Museum für Franken is presenting the first special exhibition dedicated exclusively to Peter Dell the Elder's highly regarded sculptural work - which features both Old Believer and Reformation imagery.
The life of Peter Dell the Elder is a perfect example of how the turmoil of the Reformation was reflected in the life and work of the artists. It was a time of uncertainty, in the course of which artists embarked on wanderings and turned to different patrons and new tasks.
Peter Dell can be traced back to around 1510 as an apprentice in Tilman Riemenschneider's workshop. From there, he probably went to Landshut to work in Hans Leinberger's workshop, probably on to Vienna and back to the Lower Main. However, he did not stay here for long, but went to Albertine Saxony in the course of the approaching Peasants' War in 1525, where he worked at the Freiberg court of Duke Henry the Pious. He finally settled in Würzburg as a master sculptor in 1534.
With each station in his life, the clients and requirements for Peter Dell's works changed: they range from figures of saints for altar shrines to sculptures for church furnishings and small sculptures and reliefs. These are dedicated in detail and with corresponding inscriptions to both Old Believers and Reformation themes. Finally, Peter Dell secured his livelihood with portrait medals and funerary monuments. After his death in 1552, his son, Peter Dell the Younger, continued the business in Würzburg.
The exhibition covers all stages of the artist's life and work: Dell's works are compared with works by Tilman Riemenschneider and Hans Leinberger before his handwriting is traced using examples from churches on the Lower Main.
One focus is on his many-figured, richly textured small-scale works. Portrait plaques and a slideshow with images of some of the funerary monuments created in his workshop round off the exhibition.
Loans are expected from churches on the Lower Main as well as from renowned German museums such as the Sculpture Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art of the National Museums in Berlin - Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Bavarian National Museum and the Diözesanmuseum Freising. This will enable a top-class studio exhibition that shows Peter Dell the Elder as a sculptor at the turn of an era, between the old faith and the Reformation, between the Middle Ages and modern times, Gothic and Renaissance.
