Information
StiftsMuseum Xanten today houses and displays items from the cathedral treasury and the legacy of the St. Viktor-Stift. From the very founding of this collegiate church and chapter in the mid-eighth century, the Xanten canons maintained good contacts with Flanders and the southern Netherlands. Not a few of the incumbents hailed from that region, including the renowned humanist Stephan Weinandus Pighius. During the early years, the canons also commissioned from there sculptures, paintings, and even entire altars for the adornment of the cathedral. Particularly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many had themselves painted in their characteristic canonical robes by portraitists from Nijmegen or Roermond. Especially esteemed was the textile production of Flanders and the southern Netherlands, as attested by numerous liturgical vestments and rich tapestries. Among the highlights of the collection is the so-called Golden Cope, whose unique embroidery, using gossamer-thin gold and silk thread, was executed around 1520 in Ghent or Brussels.
Thomas Hensolt, Art Historian (February 2026)