Following up on three recent posts from earlier this month, this is the final set of Nicola’s photos of the abbey of St John in Müstair, Switzerland. The first part showed frescos from the Carolingian era, the second those of the Romanesque period, and the third, various Romanesque sculptures. I have titled this post Gothic and Baroque Sculptures for the sake of simplicity, but they are mixed in with some other things, including the abbess’ crook and pectoral cross, and some pictures of the nuns’ living quarters.
A wooden altar of Our Lady of the Rosary, with small panels of the fifteen mysteries arranged around the central image of the Virgin and Child, as Mary hands a rosary and a scapular to the faithful beneath Her.
Two late Gothic (1520s) sculptural panels, originally part of a triptych, of the Annunciation and Visitation.
The pectoral cross, ring and crook of the last abbess, Rev. Mother Augustina Wolf, who held the title from 1806-10. (When the area was invaded by the kingdom of Bavaria in 1810, the abbey was not suppressed, but degraded to a priory.)
Rings with the letters IHS or some other symbol on them, which signify that the nuns’ are brides of Christ.
The refectory was built in a large within the complex by the abbess Angelina Planta ca. 1500; these decoration were added to it by another abbess in the 1760s.
A collection of Baroque statues made for the decoration of the high altar in 1628-38; two angels and St Sebastian...
the two Saints John, the Baptist and the Evangelist
St Catherine of Alexandria and another virgin martyr
the Emperor Charlemagne (whose feast day was on Tuesday), the founder of the abbey; his cultus as a Saint has been formally approved by the Holy See pro aliquibus locis
and a group of the beheading of St John the Baptist, with a statue of the risen Lord behind it. (Obviously, the glass cases makes for less than ideal photography.)
Finally, some views of the living quarters. This private room for the abbess was installed by Ursula von Hohenbalken, who held that office from 1640-66. It was considered beautiful enough to be removed to for display in a museum in Zurich, where it was kept for 70 years; returned to Müstair in 2000.
Individual cells for the nuns were built in what was formerly the common dormitory in the 1680s.
