Following up on two recent posts, we continue with some more of Nicola’s photos of the abbey of St John in Müstair, Switzerland. The first part showed the surviving frescos from the Carolingian era, and the second those of the Romanesque period; here we will see a number of Romanesque sculptures.
The marble front of this altar is a piece of the original sanctuary enclosure of the Carolingian period (first half of the 9th century), which was later dismantled. Several pieces of it (seen further below) were reutilized as building materials, and have been recovered during modern restorations, and put on display in the museum. Much of the region around the monastery is protestant; the painting of Assumption, made in 1621, was brought to the monastery in 1838 from the parish of one of the nearby towns when the last Catholic resident passed away.
This relief of the Baptism of Christ, a work of a much later period, was mounted into the wall of the abbey church in 1492.
A statue of Charlemagne, the founder of the abbey; date uncertain, partially restored.
Madonna and Child, ca. 1250.
Pietà, second half of the 14th century. In German-speaking lands, this motif is known as a “Vesperbild - evening statue”, from the common custom of putting them on the altar on the evening of Good Friday.
As noted above, the original marble fixtures of the Carolingian period were dismantled and reused as building materials. Here we see another part of the sanctuary enclosure, depicting the Lamb of God surrounded by angels, the hand of God the Father above Him, and of St John the Baptist at the lower left.
