Madonna

This silver Madonna is one of the great figural reliquaries of the late fifteenth century that have come down to us from the Cistercian abbey of Kaisheim near Donauwörth. The inscription on the repository for relics in the base, which offers praise to the Virgin Mary – the patron saint of the order – is informative about the origins of the piece. It names the donor Hans Fisches, abbot from 1479 to 1490, who gave the institution this precious gift of a Madonna at the outset of his tenure, and also names Augsburg goldsmith Heinrich Hufnagel as well as giving the date of completion as 1482. Uniquely for work dating from the Middle Ages, the maquette carved from wood which the goldsmith used during his work has survived: now in a Viennese private collection, it is a statuette of high artistic quality and is rightly ascribed to the Ulm sculptor Michel Erhart.