Sacral furniture in Austria. Vol. II

This book is a sequel to the first volume on Austrian church furniture published in 2017. While the first volume focused on ecclesiastical furniture of Eastern Austria, the sequel puts an emphasis on choir stalls, confessionals, pews and furnishings of sacristies and treasuries found in other parts of Austria. The two volumes pursue a common goal: they serve to establish a solid foundation consisting of pieces of furniture whose date and origin are beyond dispute. With the help of these reference pieces, it will be possible for the first time to date and allocate secular Austrian baroque furniture to specific art regions provided that the developmental parallelism in regards of the style of ecclesiastical and secular interiors can indeed be validated. This intermediate step is currently underway with further research. The advantage of examining baroque furniture on a basis of sacred interiors is obvious: unlike profane furniture with their frequent location changes, furniture sets in churches and monasteries were usually produced close to where they are today. And if they have been transferred to another religious building in the past, this is usually documented in written messages or oral testimonials. In addition, preserved written sources often provide information about the craftsmen involved and the manufacturing data, which can also be inferred from the building chronology of the respective architectural system. However, the two volumes are by no means limited to a detailed description of the artefacts, but also deal with other topics. The first volume is focused on the history of church furniture, while the second analyzes planning and craft processes, searches for the creators of designs and models and explores the division of labor between carpenters and other professions. Furthermore, a comprehensive chapter deals with the question of whether certain relationships between the works of carpentry, the surrounding architecture and the other church furnishings can be demonstrated. Did they try to integrate the works of carpentry into a given architectural framework? And can an interaction between the quality of the furniture, its public visibility, the church rites and the self-presentation of the clergy be observed? All these questions have hardly ever been discussed in relation to Austrian church furniture. The two volumes offer the opportunity to place baroque ecclesiastical furniture from Austria in a national and international context. They make a significant contribution to clarifying our previously vague ideas about carpenters, their workshops and products in the epoch of the Ancien Régime.