Baroque Furnishings in Austrian convent churches

Rather restrictive limits are set to the study of Austrian furniture dating from the 17th and 18th centuries. Until today there is not a single catalogue with pieces of comparison that would facilitate the task of both dating furniture more accurately and relating it to certain geographical regions. As yet an investigation of furniture by means of documents containing information about their provenance and age has not been carried out. Such pieces are particularly likely to be found in sacred buildings, where documents often mention the names of the carpenters who manufactured vestry cabinets, confessionals and pews. Not infrequently, comments can be found there either on the date of manufacture or the provenance, if it is a piece from a different building. Therefore it seems reasonable to proceed from church-related furniture so as to arrive at a sufficient number of incontestable examples. Austria has an abundance of sacred buildings which were furnished in the 17th and 18th centuries. To shape a clear framework for the investigation at hand, a study of the furniture in convent churches would serve as a first solution. 122 of the existing Austrian monasteries were erected before 1783. 23 of them are from the Benedictine or Cistercian orders and show baroque furnishings to the present day. If we choose for our research the churches of these monasteries, we get a very limited number of abbeys distributed over all Austrian regions. Furthermore these orders had substantial financial means, which explains why many items of their furniture are of consistently high quality. Hence it is very likely that these monasteries came to exercise a model-like influence on the production of profane furniture. Thus the convent churches of the Benedictine and Cistercian orders seem to provide a good starting point. Important preliminary work to the investigation was carried out by F. Windisch-Graetz, C. Witt-Doerring, F. Wagner and F. Hladky, who studied the Viennese baroque furniture as well as the furniture from the abbeys St. Florian and Kremsmünster, so that important furnishings have already been published. Apart from these authors, the staff of the "Österreichische Kunsttopographie", the "Dehio" and the "Germania Benedictina" have done some basic research regarding letters, bills and order books of many monasteries. They published at least a part of the documents discovered in monastic locations. Consequently it is now possible to describe the baroque furnishings of the cited Austrian monasteries and, in addition, to fill numerous gaps in the written records. Regional differences in the furniture production can be pointed out and it will often be possible to date various pieces more accurately. Moreover this kind of furniture will be studied for the first time with special attention to its technical characteristics. All results of the studies to be undertaken shall be published both in a printed medium and on cd- rom.

Research into Austrian furniture dating from the 17th and 18th centuries is still severely restricted simply because there does not exist a single catalogue of items which would allow us to compare, exactly date and relate Baroque items to certain regions. In fact, there has not been a single academic publication on pieces of furniture whose provenance and age are certain. Undoubtedly, such furniture is found in churches and abbeys, of all places. Hence any serious work on profane Austrian Baroque furniture must definitely start with a broad focus on religious items of furniture including a sufficient number of such items. As many as 76 of the Austrian abbeys still run have extensive holdings of Baroque furniture. In addition, some non-monastic churches in Austria commissioned new items of carpentry in the 17th and 18th centuries. So it seemed both reasonable and mandatory to limit the number of religious foundations for the purpose of this study. As the first group of items to be studied more closely I chose the furnishings of a total of 20 abbeys belonging to the Austrian Benedictines and Cistercians - with my main focus on the furniture of churches, vestries and treasuries. As some of the abbeys, however, boast furnishings of high quality in libraries, archives and refectories, these pieces have also been made part of the study in recent years. Since the time frame was generously calculated, I was able to study the work of cabinet makers in some other churches as well, mainly for reasons of comparison. In conjunction with the study of written sources this has led to a number of useful results. I managed, for example, to attribute the abbot`s seat in the Göttweig abbey and the altar of the summer-sacristy, also in Göttweig, to a Viennese sculptor of the 17th century. What is even more, I was able to show (beyond any reasonable doubt) that the choir stalls of the choir chapel in this abbey date from the early 18th century and not from the 19th as had been thought before. Other new findings have emerged with regard to the furnishings of churches in the regions of Tyrol and Salzburg. The benches of these regions certainly fall in line with certain typical designs and materials making them formally quite distinct from the stalls of other regions. Finally, I answered some social, historical and cultural questions relating to the craftsmen`s positions within the hierarchical structures of the abbeys, their income and the working conditions commonly found in such workshops. To continue work on the project, I applied to the FWF and was granted further support, which means that the study carried out so far can be expanded to become more firmly based and will therefore also better meet scientific standards.