Colmar The Isenheim Altarpiece

Between 1512 and 1516 Matthias Grünewald painted the great altarpiece for the hospital of the Antonine monks at Isenheim, who cared for victims of Saint Anthony’s fire; the sculptor Nicolas of Haguenau carved its shrine. The sick were brought before its Crucifixion, where the body of Christ is covered with sores like their own.

The altarpiece has been in Colmar since the Revolution and is shown in the Unterlinden Museum, in the chapel of a former convent of Dominican nuns. A few streets away, the Dominican church keeps Martin Schongauer’s Virgin of the Rose Bush, painted in 1473.

The altarpiece was commissioned by Guy Guers, preceptor of the Antonine house at Isenheim from 1490 to 1516, for the high altar of its church. Its wings were opened according to the liturgical year. On ordinary days the closed altarpiece showed the Crucifixion between Saint Sebastian and Saint Anthony. On the great feasts, especially those of Our Lady, the first opening showed the Annunciation, the Concert of Angels, the Virgin and Child and the Resurrection. The second opening, shown to pilgrims and the sick, reveals the carved shrine, with Saint Anthony enthroned between Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome and Guy Guers kneeling at the feet of Augustine, and painted panels of Anthony’s visit to Saint Paul the Hermit and his assault by demons. Besides good bread, the Antonines gave the sick a drink called saint vinage, made from plants touched to relics of Saint Anthony, and a herbal balm.

The altarpiece came to Colmar in 1793 and has been shown in the convent church since the museum opened in 1853. It was restored between 2018 and 2022, the painted panels in the altarpiece room in view of visitors. The collegiate church of Saint-Martin was built between 1235 and 1365; the people of Colmar call it the Münster, and it was a cathedral for about ten years after 1790. Schongauer’s Virgin of the Rose Bush hung there until 1973, when it went to the Dominican church, begun by the friars in 1283 and given back to worship in 1898.

• The Unterlinden MuseumThe altarpiece, with its panels set out so that each can be seen.
• The Dominican churchSchongauer’s Virgin of the Rose Bush.
• The collegiate church of Saint-MartinGothic, built between 1235 and 1365, called the Münster in Colmar.
• The carved shrine of Saint AnthonyBetween Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome, with Guy Guers kneeling.

• Via NativitatisThe Christmas Way, six daysDay IV, Colmar, then Strasbourg

About half an hour by train from Strasbourg.

• SélestatThe Town of the First Christmas Trees, about 13 miles as the crow flies
• Mont Sainte-OdileThe Convent of Saint Odile, about 25 miles as the crow flies
• StrasbourgThe Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, about 39 miles as the crow flies
• MarienthalThe Basilica of Notre-Dame of Marienthal, about 53 miles as the crow flies