This exquisite sculpture represented a remarkable discovery when it was salvaged from the building materials of a Renaissance house in Strasbourg in 1998. Evoking the serene quality of French Gothic art, the sculpture embodies the significance of the Strasbourg Cathedral within the history of Medieval sculpture. At the same t.mes , the apostle bears direct testimony to the ravages of iconoclasm during the 16th century Reformation. As part of a life-size figure, it would most likely have adorned a column on a jamb on the South portal of the magnificent Strasbourg Cathedral.

The head was found during renovation works in a house on Rue Prechter in the historic center of Strasbourg, only a few hundred meters away from the cathedral. Extensive studies of the building conducted in the late 1990s form the basis of a scholarly article, which details its well-documented origin¹. Built in 1555², the house formed part of an institution intended to accommodate the poor, which was founded in 1551 by the wealthy Strasbourg trader Baltasar Koenig to honor the will of his wife Elisabeth Koenig (née Schaffner). Divided into twelve homes, the establishment was known as the ‘Prechterhäuschen’: simple lodgings that could be rented for modest sums ‘for the love of God to persons who are poor but honest, honorable and of good repute’ (will of Elisabeth Schaffner, 30 July 1550)³. As early as 1558, the house was recorded in the minutes of the Strasbourg ‘Council of the XXI’ discussing the considerable difficulties the city was experiencing with the supply of building materials.

Following its discovery inside a wall in the courtyard of the house, the head of an apostle underwent sensitive conservation treatment and emerged with its surface beautifully intact (restoration report available upon request). The fine grained non-calcareous sandstone, with striations in pink and yellow, from which it is carved, has been identified as originating from the beds of the Rhine Rift Valley. The stone is similar to that from the ancient quarries used for the building of Strasbourg Cathedral, confirming the head’s likely origin in this important artistic center. Located in the heart of a prosperous city in the Holy Roman Empire – at the crossroads between French and Rhenish influences – the imposing cathedral of Strasbourg and its construction through the centuries, beginning in the early 12^th century, attracted artists from far afield who contributed to its development from a Romanesque church to a High Gothic masterpiece adorned with exceptional sculpture distinguished for its yellow and pink striated sandstone from the region. The Cathedral’s sculptural decoration, produced between about 1200 and 1365, marked a crucial stage in the adoption of the Gothic style beyond its birthplace in Paris and Champagne. The decorative elements are distinctive for their use of the characteristic pink sandstone of the Vosges region, whose color comes from its high iron oxide content (fig. 1).

The original Romanesque cathedral had been destroyed by fire in 1136, and a succession of sculpture workshops from various regions came from other sites to rebuild it, all bringing innovative ideas and new techniques. From 1220, the reconstruction of the south arm of the transept adorned with exquisite sculpture affirmed the fact that Strasbourg was an important center of production for Gothic sculpture. Preserving some Romanesque features but adapting the Rayonnant Gothic style which appeared in France in the 12th century, gothic rib vaults were added and new windows were installed and fitted with large panels of stained-glass.

Led by a Master of Works from the cathedral of Chartres, the new buildings represented a true ‘artistic revolution’, Furthermore, the sculpture from Strasbourg Cathedral had a significant influence on other new building initiatives in the Holy Roman Empire, including Bamberg, Freiburg-im-Breisgau and Marburg⁴.

Stylistic comparisons with early thirteenth-century sculpture from the Strasbourg Cathedral further substantiate a Strasbourg origin of the present head. A striking parallel for the apostle’s distinctive physiognomy is found in two heads of apostles which are also carved in yellow sandstone in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg (figs. 2 and 3). Both heads are framed by deeply carved, compact spiraling curls styled high on the forehead and behind the prominent cheekbones. A deeply furrowed forehead, with a distinctive brow bone, and delicately carved almond-shaped eyes carved with double lines to accentuate the lids. Carved in the round with the exception of a rough vertical band at the back of the head, the figure to which the present head belonged would have been placed on a column on a jamb on South portal, among the iconographic scheme of the cathedral.

The original appearance of the complete sculptures on the double portal of the south transept, largely destroyed in the French Revolution, is known from the volume Summum Argentoratensium Templum (1617) by Oseas Schadeus (1586-1626) - the first illustrated guide to Strasbourg Cathedral - and from the engraving by Isaac Brunn, 1617 (fig. 4)⁵.

The effects of the Protestant Reformation in Strasbourg are well documented and described in contemporary accounts. Luther’s writings were printed and disseminated in the city from 1518, and in addition to many pamphlets these made the city one of the first centers of the sixteenth century evangelical movement. Images incompatible with Protestant dogma, especially those of the saints and the Virgin, were removed.

Among the six fragments of apostles from the jambs of the south portal that are known today (all of which are in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame), two stylistic groups stand out very clearly, enabling historians to identify the involvement of two distinct workshops who created the sculpture for the Cathedral. Two apostle heads in the museum, regarded as the work of a second workshop, which began in approximately 1220 (figs. 2 and 3), are particularly close to our sculpture. These heads are notable for their angular faces, the extensive detail of the hair and beards, and their almond-shaped eyes with double eyelids.⁶

Like the apostles in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, our apostle’s hair is composed of a tight mass of curls. The beard is arranged in an inverted ‘S’ at the corners of the mouth. There are also similarities in the treatment of the arched eyebrows and the lines on the foreheads, shown as inverted triangles.

Unlike the fragments in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, however,the present apostle’s head is in an excellent state of preservation. This fact, together with the site of its discovery in a property built a few years after the iconoclastic events of the 1520s, would seem to indicate that the head was removed in the sixteenth century. Moreover, the fact that our apostle is facing left suggests that it could have come from one of the right jambs of the double portal, just like the apostle in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame which can be seen in Isaac Brunn’s engraving.Our head could belong to the figure in the middle (fig. 5) or it may be from the first figure on the left jamb of the right portal, identified by the key in his hand as Saint Peter (fig. 6).

Remarkably, the history of this apostle head can be traced with certainty. The precision of the carving, as well as its naturalistic style, influenced by the workshops of Paris and Champagne, make the present sculpture an exquisite example of the High Gothic style and how it was adapted by sculptors in the Upper Rhine region.

¹ The archaeological study of the house was the subject of a publication by M. Werle, ‘La fondation d'une maison de pauvres au milieu du XV e siècle à Strasbourg: histoire et archéologie des ‘zwölf Prechterhäuschen’ in Cahiers alsaciens d'archéologie d’art et d’histoire, vol.XVI I , Strasbourg, 1999, pp. 141-165.

² Ibid, p. 14. The analysis carried out by the firm Archeolabs confirms that the timber was felled between 1551and 1553, with the start of construction in circa 1554.

³ Extract from the Will of Elizabeth Schaffner, 30 July 1550, Ibid, p. 4.

⁴ J. Wirth, ‘Une révolution artistique,’ in La Révolution gothique: Strasbourg 1200-1230, exhibition catalogue, musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg, October 2015 - February 2016

⁵ This engraving is not the only one to show the portals of the south arm of the transept: there is also a print after a drawing by Jean-Jacques Arhardt (1613-1674) which shows the whole of the south façade. This second work is much less detailed than Brunn’s sprint and reveals no further information about the statuary. There is an example in the musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg (inv. no. D.22.995.0.1).

⁶ H. F. Secker, ‘Bruchstücke verloren geglaubter Bildwerke des Straßbourg Münsters’ in Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, 4, Berlin, 1911, p. 546.

Related Literature
O. Schmitt, Gotische Skulpturen des Strassburger Münsters, Frankfurt, 1924;
J. Philippin, D. Jeanette, R_A., A. Lefevre (eds.), La conservation de la pierre monumentale en France, Paris, 1992;
C. Dupeux, P. Jezler and J. Wirth (eds.), Iconoclasme: Vie et mort de l’image médiévale, exhibition catalogue, musée d’Histoire de Berne and musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg, 2001;
B. Nicolai, ‘Orders in Stone: Social Reality and Artistic Approach. The Case of the Strasbourg South Portal’ in Gesta, 2002, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 111-128;
‘Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2004-2005’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 63, no. 2, Autumn, 2005;
C. Little (ed.), Set in Stone: The Face in Medieval Sculpture, exhibition catalog, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2006;
C. Dupeaux, Strasbourg, musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg, 2009;

J-P. Meyer, A Cathedral de Strasbourg Chœur et transept: Choeur et transept: De L’Art Roman au Gothique (vers 1180-1240), Société des Amis de La Cathédrale de Strasbourg, supplement n. XXVIII Bulletin de la Cathédrale de Strasbourg, 2010;
S. Bengel, Das Straßburger Münster. Seine Ostteile und die Südquerhaus Werkstatt, Petersberg, 2011;
S. Bengel, M. J. Nohlen, S. Poitier, Bâtisseurs des Cathédrales. Strasbourg, mille ans de Chantiers, Strasbourg, 2014-2018