Angel with a monochord, from the chapterhouse of the Munster, Constance

Description

The two curved tracery infill panels with musician angels which the Museum bought in 1891 from the Vincent collection were once part of the splendid stained glass decoration of the so called chapterhouse used as the cathedral library in the Munster of Constance. In 1480 the room was furnished with a cycle of 81 glass panels made by the Strasbourg workshop of Peter Hemmel. The Hemmel workshop, founded in 1477, had demonstrated its capabilities by providing stained glass for the Stiftskirche in Tübingen, the Marienkirche in Salzburg, the Munster in Ulm, the Liebfrauenkirche in Munich and elsewhere. The angel in a carmine red dalmatic surrounded by dense foliage bows the string of a monochord, accompanying the angel playing an organ in another tracery panel.