Hectic is a taboo for Hanna Pohle. When she picks up the brush or the scalpel to lend new radiance to the treasures laid out in front of her, she does so very carefully. Pohle is a graduate restorer and works for the Bavarian court glass painting Gustav van Treeck. The Munich company specializes in restoring church windows and old stained glass. Currently from Neuschwanstein Castle, for example. Or from the collegiate church in Bamberg.
On this June morning, however, brass-framed windows from the Blutenburg Palace Chapel in Obermenzing are lying on the table in front of the artisan. Pohle turns on the light on the light panel. The wow effect sets in immediately: the panes start to sparkle – in bright red, warm yellow and rich blue. Despite their respectable age of more than 500 years, as the lighting shows, the glasses appear to have lost little of their attractiveness.
The windows of the Blutenburg Chapel are unique in Munich. An art historical rarity. “The significance of these stained glass windows is extraordinary,” stresses architect Martin Bosch from the Bavarian Palaces and Lakes Administration. Eight windows, divided into 16 picture panes, show the passion story from Christ’s entry into Jerusalem to his resurrection and the angel’s announcement to Mary. Duke Sigismund, the benefactor of the castle chapel built between 1488 and 1497, also had coats of arms attached to the upper part of the glass surfaces. They are intended to identify the House of Wittelsbach as a member of the European high nobility.
In the Maxvorstadt workshop, Pohle has already removed cobwebs and soot from one of these coats of arms. Very carefully, with a brush and a special industrial vacuum cleaner with an asbestos fiber filter. Now she takes a bit of cotton wool, wraps the soft mass around a wooden stick and gently removes visible dirt such as traces of paint and lead. “But I mustn’t rub the glass for too long, otherwise the painting will be damaged.” Because the dirt and bird droppings that have settled on the windows over time act like sandpaper if the pressure is too high. In a next step, the expert will try to remove the remaining impurities with a scalpel and a water-ethanol mixture. Before she starts gluing the cracks in the glass.
The precious glass windows are gently cleaned, cracks in the lead are soldered with tin and cracks in the glass are glued.
(Photo: Catherine Hess)
“The coats of arms are already corroded on the back, you can’t get them completely blank anymore,” says Pohle. It looks better with the Passion paintings. But here, too, there are cracks in the lead that have to be soldered with tin. Or cracked glass. In one section, the glass damage runs straight through Jesus’ abdomen – only epoxy resin and retouching help there. At the end, each window gets a satinized preservation pane. A safety glass with UV filter that protects against stone chips and the sun. And renewed alarm wires.
Experts agree that the precious contemporary glass paintings in the Blutenburg chapel, which are stylistically reminiscent of Jan Polack’s paintings, need to be renovated. “Actually,” says Oliver Schach, who is in charge of the project as a specialist restorer for the palace administration, “all panes require maintenance intervals of 30 to 40 years.” But the procedure is expensive: At the beginning of the 2021 contract, the palace administration had expected “significantly more than 30,000 euros”. Money that the authority lacks. Which is why the Obermenzing Citizens’ Association agreed two years ago to support the project on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of its founding.
The Gustav van Treeck company, founded in 1887 and thus one of the oldest glass painting families of modern times, built the first window in November 2021. For the purpose of a sample renovation. This model piece, which shows the burial and resurrection of Christ, is now the only one back in place in the chapel.
The restoration costs 46,000 euros, 20,000 are still missing
It is now also clear that the entire procedure – like everything else at the moment due to increased construction and energy costs – will be significantly more expensive than initially thought: there are now 46,000 euros in the room. “But then everything is in there,” says Schach. In addition to the restoration and detailed documentation of the renovation steps, the scaffolding for installation and removal, measuring the glass, all transport and the necessary coordination with the alarm system technicians. The price also includes the art-historical appraisal and evaluation of the cycle by a team from “Corpus Vitrearum”. This international research project records, archives and publishes historical stained glass inventories.
The Obermenzing Citizens’ Association has already raised a good half of the sum, the money comes from local citizens and associations. The Munich-Blutenburg Lions Club alone donated 5,000 euros. “Around 20,000 euros in donations are still missing,” says the chairman Frieder Vogelsgesang.
Hanna Pohle and Oliver Schach hope that all the windows will be restored by late summer. Then the interior of the castle chapel can shine again in new, old splendor.