The Monstrance by Hans Ryssenberg. Marking the 550th Anniversary of Its Creation

Its centrepiece, and sole exhibit, is a unique work of mediaeval applied art from the collection of the State Hermitage – the celebrated monstrance by Hans Ryssenberg created in the year 1474.

The history of this masterpiece can be traced back to the moment when it was commissioned. The monstrance was signed and dated by the silversmith; there are documents providing details about its creation and its subsequent fate, which is something extremely rare for a work of art from the Middle Ages.

In Catholic worship, a monstrance (from the Latin monstrare – “to show”) is a liturgical vessel used for the storage and display of the consecrated host. Such receptacles came into widespread use after 1264, the date of the institution of the Feast of Corpus Christi (the Body of Christ) during which the host became the focal point of religious processions.

The monstrance being exhibited was created for the Nigiluste Church (St Nicholas’s) in Reval, present-day Tallinn. In 1524 it was almost destroyed at the hands of supporters of the Reformation, and by resolution of the municipal council was transferred to the keeping of the new clergy as a material treasure now belonging to the city. In this status it remained in the sacristy until the Northern War  in the early 18th century, when Russian forces laid siege to Reval. After the city’s capitulation, the silver monstrance was presented as a gift to the new Governor General of Estland, Alexander Menshikov.

In the history of the jeweller’s craft in the late Gothic era, this is an outstanding piece of work executed to a standard far exceeding the majority of items of church plate. The depictions engraved on its foot can stand comparison with the works produced by major artists of the day – the Golden Age of the German print.

In 2002, the Reval monstrance was transferred from the permanent display in the Western (Romanov) Gallery of the Small Hermitage to the re-opening Diamond Rooms and since then it has only rarely left this new home for temporary exhibitions.

The display in the Apollo Hall is not just an occasion to remember the story of this monstrance’s creation and the dramatic turns in its later biography. It is, above all, an opportunity to look at this piece anew – not in the context of historical events or as one of the sumptuous exhibits of the museum’s Treasure Gallery, but closer to the way that the Niguliste’s congregation would have perceived it around the turn of the 16th century – in all its originality and splendour, befitting the momentous holy sacrament that it was made to hold.

The modern capabilities of the photographer’s art make it possible to delve deeper and to examine details that were never intended for even an observant eye. Part of the display will be an installation built around close-up photography and the substantial enlargement of the images, inviting viewers to “enter into” the gleaming architectural framework and feel themselves amid a “Gothic forest” occupied by saints, apostles, fantastic creatures and plants.

The exhibition has been prepared by the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art (headed by Olga Kostiuk)

The curator and author of the exhibition concept is Yekaterina Nikolayevna Nekrasova-Shchedrinskaya, head of the Precious Metals and Stone Sector within the Department of Western European Applied Art.

The design for the exhibition was developed by the State Hermitage’s Department for Exhibition and Design Work. The artists-designers are Boris Kuziakin (the head of the department) and Anna Sokolova.

The exhibit was photographed by Alexander Botkov of the State Hermitage’s Editorial and Publishing Department.

The display is supplemented by a video film specially created by the State Hermitage’s Sector for the Production of Electronic Productions (headed by Irina Melnikova).

The exhibition can be visited by all holders of entrance tickets to the Main Museum Complex.

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A monstrance in Catholic worship is a liturgical vessel used for the storage and display of the consecrated host. This element of church plate was introduced after the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, which precisely defined the Church’s dogma relating to the sacrament of the Eucharist. It affirmed that during Holy Mass, the bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Christ, and so the host acquired the status of a holy relic. Now after the consecration, the priest would raise it on high, presenting it to the congregation: this visible gesture was an important aspect, as it was considered that the eyes are the gateway to the heart and one needs to see in order to love. It was also determined that the host, like all relics, should be kept in a closed transparent receptacle. Then in 1264, the local feast of Corpus Christi introduced by Saint Juliana of Liège, during which the host became the focal point of a religious procession, was extended by Pope Urban IV to become obligatory for all Catholics. The monstrance, as the centrepiece of such processions, was decorated with all the splendour befitting the greatest of relics and increased in size with the growing importance of the feast.

Hans Ryssenberg’s monstrance is 112 cm tall. The tower – a traditional shape for the late Gothic in North Germany and the Low Countries, whose artist influence was decisive for Reval – is divided up into three tiers. The lowest, atop a twelve-sided platform, contains a glass cylinder for the host (the wafer was inserted into a crescent-shaped holder – the lunula) between two buttresses with little figures of apostles in niches. The second contains, in a hexagonal tower, a figure of the Virgin of the Apocalypse and six smaller-sized figures of apostles. The third is a three-sided turret holding the figure of a warrior (Saint Victor) rising to a spire. At the vey top is a cross with the crucified Christ on the front and Mary on the back.

The monstrance’s elaborate housing – like some airborne “Gothic forest” made up of a host of piers, flying buttresses, pinnacles with crockets and lancet arches – contains, besides saints, several types of dragon-gargoyles and ornamental vegetation.

This entire structed is supported by a stem with a protruding knop bearing the lettering IhESVS and decorated with a small chapel. The hexafoil foot is engraved with depictions of the Christ-Child with the Instruments of the Passion, Saint John the Divine and a bishop (Saint Nicholas).

In keeping with the monstrance’s purpose, the main subjects are focussed on the theme of Christ’s Passion. Noteworthy, however, is the unusual central position allotted to the Virgin of the Apocalypse, which might be attributed to the particular veneration of Mary in Livonia (of which Estland was part), as well as the figure of Saint Victor, the patron saint of Reval, and the depiction Saint Nicholas.

A brief history of the monstrance

In the 15th century Reval, a large trading port belonging to the Hanseatic League, was under the control of the Livonian Order. Its population, mainly merchants and craftsmen, was almost entirely German. It was most probably from Lübeck, the Hansa’s foremost centre, that Hans Ryssenberg the Elder also arrived in the city around the year 1450. Records show that he was elected a member of the law court and an elder in the Guild of Saint Canute, an organization made up of craftsmen from various fields, including silversmiths. In 1488–92, at the invitation of Tsar Ivan III, Ryssenberg and two apprentices worked at the court in Moscow, later returning to Reval, where he died in 1499.

In 1471, when the Nigiluste Church commissioned the monstrance from him, the silversmith was already playing a prominent role in the city. The negotiations went on for quite some time. He was promised 150 marks as payment for his work, on top of the cost of the silver. A collection was announced among the parishioners to raise the funds necessary for the project and detailed records of that have also survived. The bulk of the work was already finished in 1474, but gilding was still required, to which end several gold coins and old minor items of church plate were provided from the treasury. In 1477 the monstrance was gilded and consecrated. There are even entries about certain additional work: an order for a cord with two silver hooks, cleaning, and, most often, the replacement from time to time of a broken glass cylinder.

The monstrance was not destined to serve its original intended purpose for long. In 1524 it was nearly destroyed at the hands of supporters of the Reformation(the plundering of the church was prevented by barricading the door and pouring molten lead into the locks) and the very next day it was stripped of its sacred significance by resolution of the municipal council. The piece was transferred to the keeping of the new clergy as a material treasure now belonging to the city. In this status it remained in the sacristy until the Northern War, when Russian forces laid siege to Reval. Its capitulation followed on 29 September 1710, settled by Peter the Great’s promise that the urban middle class and nobility would retain all their privileges. He did not, however, leave any written undertaking, and for the next few months the burgomaster sought documentary confirmation of those commitments. Finally, in order to draw attention to the matter and speed things up, it was decided to present the silver monstrance to Alexander Menshikov, the Governor-General of Estland, and that was done in Narva on 3 March 1711. Menshikov apparently passed the gift on to Peter the Great. After Peter’s death in 1725, the monstrance was recorded among his personal belongings. Then it was transferred to the Kunstkammer, where its origins in Reval were very soon forgotten. Already in the first catalogue, Museum Imperialis Petropolitani (1741), it is described as a trophy taken by Tsar Ivan the Terrible in Dorpat. In 1894 the monstrance entered the Imperial Hermitage, coming into the Classical Department, and from there to the Department of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

Based on materials provided by Yekaterina Nekrasova-Shchedrinskaya,
curator of the exhibition, head of the Precious Metals and Stone Sector
in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Applied Art