View on Jerusalem and surroundings with prayer portrait of Frederick the Wise of Saxony

General information
Original location Saxony?
Current location Gotha, Schlossmuseum Schloss Friedenstein, inv. no. SG 77
Artist Anonymous (possibly Jacob Elsner)
Date Shortly after 1493 (front), after 1503 (back)
Material Oil on pine wood
Dimensions 68,8 x 80 cm
Visual elements
Short description View on Jerusalem (center left), with around it a landscape with several holy places, among others the Ascension of Jesus and Mary, the Last Supper, Gethsemane, and the martyrdom of St Stephen. A group of pilgrims just enters the city. In front of the city (bottom left) a kneeling harnessed figure, turned to the viewer's left, with a coat of arms. In the lower right corner the sea with a pilgrim's ship. Short texts indicate many scenes.
The back of the panel shows a horizontal strip with eight more kneeling pilgrims painted in grisaille, accompanied by texts and divided by winded columns.
Text For transcriptions of the small texts accompanying religious scenes, see Holterman
Number of pilgrims 9
Depicted pilgrims
Personal information
Name Frederick III ('the Wise') of Saxony
Social status / profession Elector of Saxony; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre; founder of the University of Wittenberg (1502); Defender of Martin Luther; Collected a huge amount of relics, which partly consisted of relics he acquired in the Holy Land while on pilgrimage.
Coat of arms Bottom left: semicircular shield
Text Under the portrait, bottom left: Friderich von Gottes gnaden, hertzog zu Sachsen und churfürst zug zum Heylige Grab 1493
Other known portraits Among others:
Portrait of Frederick the Wise by Lucas Cranach the Elder, ca.1532, multiple versions (a.o. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi)
Frederick the Wise with saints Ursula and Genevieve by Lucas Cranach the Elder (part of the Dessauer Fürstenaltar) (Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. no. KMSsp730)
Portrait of Frederick the Wise by Albrecht Dürer, 1496 (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie der Staatliche Museen)
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1493
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage None
Travel report A report of the pilgrimage was included as an appendix by Georg Spalatin in his biography of Frederick. There exists an account book of the journey as well, compiled by Frederick's secretary Hans Hund (see literature)
Death
Date of death 5 May 1525
Location of grave Wittenberg, Schlosskirche
Image of grave Tomb monument by Peter Visscher the Younger
Personal information
Name Heinrich Ketzel
Social status / profession Merchant (in the saffron trade), originally from Augsburg; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the order of the lily or flower pot, the order of Cyprus, and of St Catherine
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Heinrich ketzel zug zum heiligen grab vnd auf den pergk Synay katherine grab 1389
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1389
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Jerusalem cross
Other pilgrimages Sinai, monastery of St Catherine
Attributes other pilgrimages Wheel of St Catherine
Death
Date of death 14 September 1438 (mentioned on grave)
Location of grave Nuremberg, St Sebald Church
Image of grave North side (outside) of the west choir of the St Sebald church
Personal information
Name Georg Ketzel
Social status / profession Merchant; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of Santiago de Compostela, of St Anthony of Henneberg, of the lily or flower pot of Aragon, of the Cypriotic sword
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Friderich von gottes [gn]adenn, Margraue zu Branndennburg vnnd churfurst, zug zum hey-ligen grab. Vnnd ich Jorg ketzel mit Ime. 1453
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1453
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Red Jerusalem cross
Other pilgrimages Santiago de Compostela
Attributes other pilgrimages Scallop of St James with a star
Death
Year of death 1488
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Georg was a grandson of Heinrich, Ulrich's brother, and Georg II and Wolf's father.
Georg Ketzel the Elder founded a chapel of the Holy Sepulchre in the hospital of the Holy Gost (Heilig-Geist-Spital). There still exists a stained-glass window carrying his and his wife's arms and order signs, together with a Jerusalem cross (GNM MM197).
Personal information
Name Ulrich Ketzel
Social status / profession Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the order of the Dragon, of the Cypriotic sword, of the lily or flower pot of Aragon, of St Anthony of Henneberg
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: [Ul]rich ketzel f[u]r auf [de]m wasser aus dem nyderlan[n]d zum heyli[ge]n grab. 1462
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1462
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Jerusalem cross
Other pilgrimages Santiago de Compostela
Attributes other pilgrimages Scallop of St James with star
Death
Year of death Before 1484
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Ulrich was a grandson of Heinrich and the brother of Georg the Elder.
There exists a stained-glass window with his arms and insigna (GNM MM199)
Personal information
Name Martin Ketzel
Social status / profession Merchant; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Cypriotic sword, of the lily or flower pot of Aragon
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Ott von gote gnaden Her[zog von Ba]yrn zug z[um he]iligen grab [vn]d [ich] martin Ketzel mit Ime. 1468. // Albrecht von gots gnaden hertzog von Sachsen zug zum heiligen grab vnd ich martin ketzel mit [Ime] [...]
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1468(?) and 1476
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Two red Jerusalem crosses
Travel report Martin Ketzel, Pilgerfahrt ins Heilige Land (MS Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. Pal. Germ. 117) written in Augsburg, between 1476 and 1486.
Death
Year of death After 1507
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks The date of Martin's first pilgrimage is uncertain. The text mentions 1468, but duke Otto of Bavaria went in 1460.
Around Martin developed the legend that he had founded the Nuremberg Stations of the Cross, executed by the sculptor Adam Kraft. According to the legend, Kraft used the measurements of the Via Dolorosa taken by Martin in the Holy Land. Upon returning to Germany, Martin lost his notes and had to go on pilgrimage a second time. The story cannot be proven by any factual evidence, however.
Martin Ketzel belonged to the Augsburg-based branch of the family.
Personal information
Name Wolf Ketzel
Social status / profession Merchant; Flag bearer of the city of Nuremberg; Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the order of the lily or flower pot of Aragon, of the Cypriotic sword. Wolf fell out with the city after 1505 during a conflict with his family in law. He fled to Würzburg in 1515 and was removed from the Nuremberg city council in 1517.
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Friderich von gottes gnaden herzog von Sachse[n] vnnd churfurst etcetera vnnd hertzog cristoff von Bayrn zugen zum heyligen grab. Vnd ich wolff ketzel mit Inen. 1493.
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1493
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Red jerusalem cross
Death
Year of death 1544
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Son of Georg the Elder, brother of Georg the Younger.
There exists a stained-glass window with his arms and insigna (GNM MM198).
Wolf Ketzel is the only Ketzel who traveled together with Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony.
Personal information
Name Georg Ketzel
Social status / profession Merchant; took part in the army of Nuremberg during the Landshut War of Succession (1504); City counselor (Schöffe) for the farmer's court (1510); Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the order of the Cypriotic sword
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Heynrich von gots gnadenn Hertzog von Sachsen zug zum heyligen grab vnd ich Jorg ketzel mit Ime. 1498.
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Medal of Georg Ketzel the Younger (Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, inv. no. Med270) also displays the signs of Jerusalem pilgrimage
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1498
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Red Jerusalem cross
Death
Year of death 1533
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Son of Georg the Elder, brother of Wolf. Georg went together with Sebald, his cousin.
There exists a stained-glass window with his arms and insigna (GNM MM200)
Personal information
Name Sebald Ketzel
Social status / profession Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Cypriotic sword
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Heinrich von gottes gnade[n]n hertzog von Sachsen zug zum Heiligen grab. Vnnd ich Se[bo]lt ketzel mit Ime. 1498.
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1498
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Red Jerusalem cross
Death
Year of death 1530
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Great-grandson of Heinrich, brother of Michael. He accompanied his cousin Georg the Younger on the pilgrimage.
There exists a stained-glass window with his arms and insigna (GNM MM201)
Personal information
Name Michael Ketzel
Social status / profession Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, of the Cypriotic sword
Coat of arms Semicircular shield - On a three topped mountain a long-tailed monkey, holding in its right hand a roundle and around its body a girdle and ring; crest: the monkey on the mountain.(op een gouden drieberg een meerkat met een bol in zijn rechterhand en een gordel met ring om zijn middel; helmteken: de meerkat op de berg)
Text Above the portrait: Graff herman von hennenberg zug zum heyligen grabe vnd ich michel Ketzel mit Ime. 1503.
Other known portraits Portrait series of the Ketzel family
View of the Holy Land with prayer portraits of the Ketzel family
Pilgrimages
Year of pilgrimage to Jerusalem 1503
Attributes Jerusalem pilgrimage Red Jerusalem cross
Death
Year of death 1505
Additional information related to this person
Personal remarks Great-grandson of Heinrich, brother of Sebald. Michael was, as far as we know, the last Ketzel to make the Jerusalem pilgrimage.
Additional information
General remarks The back of the panel, displaying eight pilgrims from the Nuremberg merchant's family Ketzel, is puzzling. There is no clear reason why Frederick would have included their likenesses on the back of his own memorial. It is therefore likely that the back represents an adaptation of the panel by (a) member(s) of the Ketzel family, especially given their other pilgrimage memorials. These memorials include a panel with eight kneeling pilgrims from the family, very much like the back of Frederick's panel, and a view of the Holy Land with kneeling members of the family, with high similarity to the front of Frederick's panel. Moreover, documentary evidence suggests that the original memorial ordered by Frederick to commemorate his pilgrimage, showing a view of the Holy Land with a prayer portrait, had three wings instead of one. The triptych was located in the Wittenberg Church of All Saints (Schlosskirche), but lost in a 1760 fire. The panel currently present in Gotha is therefore probably a copy of the Wittenberg panel, either made for Frederick the Wise himself to display on another location and subsequently acquired by one of the Ketzels, who had his family members painted on the back, or made as a copy of the Wittenberg triptych for one of the Ketzels (probably Wolf, who travelled with the Elector) in order to stress their close relations to important princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Like all other pilgrimage memorials of the Ketzel family, this appropriation of Frederick's pilgrimage memorial can therefore be seen as an attempt to raise the social status of their family.
Frederick the Wise's pilgrimage is one of the most thoroughly documented late medieval journeys to Jerusalem. Next to the report of the pilgrimage by Spalatin and the account book by Hund (see personal information about Frederick), Duke Christoph of Bavaria is known to have kept a diary as well. Moreover, a poem about the journey was written for Christoph by his court poet Hans Schneider after the duke died en route. Some six more travel reports of lesser nobles who partook in the same pilgrimage are attested (see Halm, pp. 249-258 (nos. 99-103)).
Literature
  • Aign, Theodor, Die Ketzel. Ein Nürnberger Handelsherren- und Jerusalempilger-Geschlecht (Neustad an der Aisch 1961)
  • Bellmann, Fritz, Marie-Luise Harksen and Roland Werner, Die Denkmale der Lutherstadt Wittenberg (Weimar 1979), p. 250
  • Bruck, Robert, Friedrich der Weise als Förderer der Kunst (Strasbourg 1903), pp. 203-204
  • Fey, Carola, 'Wallfahrtserinnerungen an spätmittelalterlichen Fürstenhöfen in Bild und Kult', in Carola Fey, Steffen Krieb, and Werner Rösener (eds.), Mittelalterliche Fürstenhöfe und ihre Erinnerungskulturen (Göttingen 2007), pp. 141-166
  • Goren, Haim, 'Pilgrimage, tapestries, and cartography: sixteenth-century wall hangings commemorating a pilgrimage to the Holy Land', Journal of Historical Geography 33 (2007), pp. 489-513.
  • Halm, Christian, Europäische Reiseberichte des späten Mittelalters. Eine analytische Bibliographie, Teil I: Deutsche Reiseberichte, ed. by Werner Paravicini (Frankfurt am Main 1994)
  • Holterman, Bart, Pilgrimages in images: Early Sixteenth-century Views of the Holy Land with Pilgrims' Portraits as Part of the Commemoration of the Jerusalem Pilgrimage in Germany, unpublished master thesis (Utrecht 2013)
  • Hund, Hans, 'Hans Hunds Rechnungsbuch (1493-94)', ed. by Reinhold Röhricht and Heinrich Meisner, Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 4 (1883), pp. 37-100
  • Spalatin, Georg, Georg Spalatin's historischer Nachlaß und Briefe, vol. 1: Das Leben und die Zeitgeschichte Friedrichs des Weisen, ed. by Christian Gotthold Neudecker and Ludwig Preller (Jena 1851)
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