In cooperation with Museum Catharijneconvent, the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum is presenting a major exhibition of medieval Utrecht sculpture from before the Iconoclasm, the period when mobs destroyed many images in the city’s Catholic churches. Surviving the Iconoclasm will be a rare opportunity to admire the riches and beauty of medieval Utrecht sculpture.
Disastrous consequences
Utrecht suffered three separate iconoclasms between 1566 and 1580. Churches were stripped of objects that were used in Catholic services. Unused churches and religious houses were soon demolished, and their statues were dumped into rubbish tips, buried or removed from sight in some other way. Utrecht suffered another disaster in 1674 when a tornado destroyed most of the nave of the city’s cathedral. All things considered, it is a miracle that so much of its medieval artistic heritage has survived.
Flowering
The lengthy construction of the cathedral, starting in the second half of the thirteenth century, was of great importance for the development of Utrecht sculpture. Between 1450 and 1520, in particular, many sculptors profited from this gigantic building project. They worked not only on the cathedral fabric but for canons, priests and wealthy private citizens as well.