Additional filming due to corona

For the current special exhibition “Peter Paul Rubens and the Baroque in the North” at the Paderborn Diocesan Museum, many international loans have made a long journey. Another highlight is the baroque high altar painting of Paderborn Cathedral, which was destroyed during the Second World War. 75 years after the end of the war, it can be seen again for the first time. Graduate restorer Gisela Tilly led the conservation measures

Peter Paul Rubens is one of the leading masters of Flemish Baroque. He was already the star of his profession during his lifetime and influenced the entire art scene. In six exhibition units, the Diözesanmuseum Paderborn is presenting the major art and cultural history special exhibition “Peter Paul Rubens and the Baroque in the North” until October 25, 2020. Based on an extensive redecoration of Paderborn Cathedral with altarpieces and sculptures by Antwerp artists from Rubens’ immediate circle, the show presents significant innovations in painting, architecture and church furnishings of the Flemish-influenced Baroque period. Around 120 works on loan from international collections are on display.

These include works from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, Statens Museum for Kunst Copenhagen, the Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Many of the precious paintings, sculptures and drawings have been on a long journey. They were accompanied on their journey by academic staff. After arriving at the Diözesanmuseum, restorers checked and documented every centimeter of the delivered objects. If a courier was unable to travel due to the coronavirus, additional filming and more intensive photography was carried out. A specialized team then took care of the placement of the objects in the exhibition: trolleys, lifting platforms and pulleys for the heavy works as well as white gloves and custom-made display cases for the smaller and delicate exhibits.

A highlight of the special exhibition is the baroque high altar painting of Paderborn Cathedral, which was destroyed in the Second World War. 75 years after the end of the war, it can be seen again for the first time. Museum Director Professor Christoph Stiegemann, who is retiring in autumn 2020, associates this work with a very personal memory: “The exhibition with loans from all over Europe and the USA sends a courageous signal of European solidarity against all isolation and isolationism, especially in the current situation. In addition to the numerous top-class exhibits that show Rubens’ work and his influence on Baroque art in Europe on a broad scale, the reconstructed Baroque high altarpiece from Paderborn Cathedral is the highlight of the exhibition for me personally. As a young scholar at the museum, I documented the fragments of the war-destroyed paintings that were rediscovered in 1983 and accompanied their transfer to the museum’s depot. Their resurrection in the Rubens exhibition marks the beginning and end of my work at the Diocesan Museum in the most beautiful way.”

The central altarpiece depicting the Nativity and the Adoration of the Shepherds, together with two side altars, was the most important work of the Baroque period in Paderborn Cathedral. It was created between 1656 and 1658 by the Antwerp painter Antonius Willemssens. He studied and worked in Rubens’ immediate circle. In the mid-17th century, Antonius and his brother Ludovicus Willemssens were commissioned by Prince-Bishop Dietrich Adolf von der Recke to redecorate Paderborn Cathedral in the Baroque style. They spread the Flemish Baroque style from Antwerp to Paderborn.

On January 17 and March 27, 1945, two air raids on Paderborn Cathedral destroyed the altarpieces and the mighty baroque superstructures. However, although the precious paintings were torn into tiny pieces, many of the parts were miraculously preserved. The cathedral provost at the time, Joseph Brockmann, prevented the complete loss of the precious paintings. He collected the fragments immediately after the bombing and stored them carefully. Nevertheless, decades were to pass before the individual pieces – which were rediscovered in the 1980s – could be secured and stored in the depot of the Paderborn Diocesan Museum.

Before the exhibition, the numerous small and large scraps of canvas were newly secured, conserved and painstakingly reassembled. Graduate conservator Gisela Tilly took on this special challenge. She cleaned hundreds of individual parts, removed the yellowed varnish and reduced the sometimes extensive retouching. Where necessary, the restorer closed cracks with Japanese paper. After cleaning, the canvas fragments were sorted. Carefully preserved photographs were helpful for this: one image from the 1860s shows the overall structure, two images from the 1940s show the paintings shortly before they were destroyed in the Second World War.

Read more in RESTAURO 6/2020.