Conrad von Soest

Conrad von Soest

Nativity from the Niederwildungen Altarpiece
Born 1370
Dortmund
Died 1422
Nationality German
Movement International Gothic

Conrad von Soest, also Konrad in modern texts, or in Middle High German Conrad van Sost or "von Soyst", (born around 1370 in Dortmund;[1] died soon after 1422) was the most significant Westphalian artist and painted in the so-called soft style of International Gothic. He played a leading role in the introduction of this International Courtly Style to Northern Germany around 1390 and influenced German and Northern European painting into the late 15th century.[2] He was the master of a thriving workshop and was accepted into the social circle of the cosmopolitan patrician elite of Dortmund. Dortmund was then a leading and very prosperous member of the influential Hanseatic League.[3]

Works

Niederwildungen Altarpiece from Bad Wildungen.

Conrad von Soest's main surviving works are influenced by French illuminated manuscripts and certain early Parisian examples of Early Netherlandish painting; his detailed knowledge of Parisian patterns and techniques points towards a sojourn in Paris as a journeyman in the 1380s:

Life

Marienaltar in the Marienkirche, Dortmund.

Sources

The surviving documents relevant to Conrad von Soest are:

Citizen of Dortmund

As the name 'Conrad von Soest' does not appear in the list of new citizens and as his marriage contract was written in the form reserved for Dortmund citizens, he was clearly born to a Dortmund family.[9]

Marriage contract

The marriage contract ("Morgensprache"), made before witnesses, between "Conrad von Soest" and "Gertrude, daughter of Lambertes van Munster", is dated February 11, 1349.[10] The couple was able to dispose of a considerably sum each in this contract. Another unusual aspect of the contract is the number and quality of the witnesses: 6 members of the cosmopolitan, prosperous and well-educated patriciate of Dortmund, among them the second mayor of the current council, Herrmann Klepping, the tertiary council member, Detmar Klepping, and both mayors already elected for the following council year, Arnd Sudermann and Lambert Berswordt. The wealth of the groom and the eminent witnesses may well indicate that this was a second marriage. (A master had to marry before he could open his own workshop and it would then have taken a while to earn such wealth).

Painter of Dortmund

According to the membership list of the Confraternity of Mary of 1396, Conrad von Soest lived in the Ostenhellweg, Dortmund's principal thoroughfare. The list also refers to two other painters resident in the Ostenhellweg, Lambert and Hermann. It is unclear whether they were his journeymen, living in his house, or masters presiding over their own workshops in the same street.

Since 1954, the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (Landscape Society Westphalia-Lippe) has awarded the Konrad-von-Soest Prize for Visual Arts, endowed with 12,800 euros.

Sources and notes

  1. ↑ Brigitte Corley dates the birth of Conrad to the 1360s; cp. dies., "Conrad von Soest und seine Werkstatt", in: Brigitte Buberl (ed.): Conrad von Soest : neue Forschungen über den Maler und die Kulturgeschichte der Zeit um 1400, l.c., p. 61
  2. ↑ His profound influence on the so-called "school of Cologne is traced in: Brigitte Corley "Painting and Patronage in Cologne 1300-1500", Turnhout 200
  3. ↑ Brigitte Corley, "Conrad von Soest, Painter among Merchant Princes, London 1996, pp.18-21
  4. ↑ For a reconstruction of the altarpiece, see Brigitte Corley, "A nineteenth century photograph and the Reconstruction of the Dortmund Altarpiece", in: Visual Resources; An International Journal of Documentation 34, XIII, pp. 169-188, Hanover, USA, 1997.
  5. ↑ concerning the former attribution of further works see: Brigitte Corley, "Einige Bemerkungen zu Conrad von Soest und seiner Werkstatt", in: Brigitte Buberl (ed.): Conrad von Soest : neue Forschungen über den Maler und die Kulturgeschichte der Zeit um 1400, l.c.
  6. ↑ according to transcriptions by Christianus Dickius in 1617 and Ludwig Varnhagen in 1778 and 1793 the signature read "...Conradum pictorem de Susato..."; cp. Brigitte Corley: Conrad von Soest, Berlin, p. 199
  7. ↑ Facsimiles in Thomas Schilp and Barbara Welzel (ed.), Dortmund und Conrad von Soest im spätmittelalterlichen Europa, l.c., tables 29 and 30, p. 229
  8. ↑ Brigitte Corley, Conrad von Soest: Painter Among Merchant Princes, London 1996, p. 78
  9. ↑ Meister Konrad von Soest, ein geborner Dortmunder Bürger und andere Dortmunder Maler, l.c., pp. 141-145
  10. ↑ first published by Winterfeld, 1925

Attribution

Literature

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