Current Exhibits

A particularly valuable exhibit from the Gothic Room of the Mining and Gothic Museum in Leogang is the winged altarpiece from the Frey collection. The first item from the Frey collection, it was acquired by friends of the museum in 2008 and then donated to it. Carl von Frey (1826-1896) was a successful businessman who, in the second half of the 19th century, assembled Salzburg’s largest private collection of Gothic art.

The altarpiece was probably built around 1520 in Lower Bavaria. The shrine, predella and wings are made in spruce and the sculptures in lime wood. The wings are painted on both sides. The interior shows St. Barbara and St. Margaret, each on a gold brocade background. The exterior shows the Annunciation. Below it, on the predella, is Jesus making a blessing gesture and holding a globe, along with the 12 apostles.

The shrine or ‘retable’ has been preserved more or less in its original state. Mary is standing in the centre of the base with the Infant Jesus. At her feet is a crescent moon. To the left and right of the Mother of God are St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine.

Mary corresponds to the Apocalyptic style of Madonnas with the golden rays on the back wall of the shrine symbolising the sun. Mary carries the lively, cross-legged Infant Jesus on her right arm, who is reaching with both arms towards his mother. In her left hand the Madonna holds a fruit which her child is trying to grab.

The Blessed Mother’s robes consist of a golden dress gathered below the chest with a round neckline and golden sleeves. A golden mantle hangs on her shoulders, the blue lining of which is visible in the drapery.

Folds fall in long lanes down to the base. Her oval-shaped, harmonious face with its high forehead is framed by open strands of hair that spill loosely onto the shoulders. The Madonna is wearing a leafy crown.

St. Catherine, occupying the place of honour on the right side of the Mother of God, holds a sword in her left hand. There is a broken wheel at her feet – a symbol of martyrdom. In her right hand she is presenting an open book. On her head is a simple gold crown. The rich folds of her golden mantle reveal its green lining as if swept up by a gust of wind.

To the left of the Blessed Mother is St. Mary Magdalene. She is wearing a veil placed carefully on her shoulders and holding a golden, tapered anointing vessel with both hands.

The winged altarpiece from the Frey collection was exhibited in Salzburg in 1888 at the 40th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I’s coronation.

The oldest representation of an Apocalyptic Madonna is the Crescent Moon Madonna in Hortus Delicarium by Herrad of Landsberg. The image of the Crescent Moon Madonna goes back to the account of John’s vision of a cosmic, pregnant woman crowned with stars and clothed by the sun with the moon beneath her feet, who is menaced by a dragon following an apocalyptic battle between the dragon and the Archangel Michael.

The march of the 1731 and 1732 émigrés from Salzburg to East Prussia caused a great stir among the German principalities and also found its expression in the visual arts.

The two portraits show a man and woman in typical Salzburg dress. The man has a prayer book in his right hand in which you can even recognise the Bible passages. In his left is a walking stick and on his back, a large, wooden box in which the émigrés carried their essentials, needed on their long march. Even the details are precise; the man’s initials appear on his braces.

The woman is carrying her child on her back in a linen cloth. She too has a prayer book, in her left hand, and a walking stick in her right. Above her is the inscription ‘Salzburg Exile Anno Domini 1732’.

The origin of the portraits is unknown.

The quality of the silver from the mines in medieval Leogang was excellent and it was used for minting gold and silver coins by the Salzburg archbishops, whose archbishopric was both imperial estate and mint estate of Bavaria.

Salzburg coins from around 1500 are closely connected with one name in particular, Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach. When he came to power shortly before 1500, the domestic coinage and monetary system was in a state of disrepair.

Salzburg was in possession of huge amounts of gold and silver deposits, among the largest in Europe. But since nearly all the noble metal had been sold to Venice by a trading company there was a state-wide lack of coinage. Not a single coin had been minted for over 30 years.

Foreign money was coming into Salzburg but this was not enough to fulfil the demands of the economy. Leonhard von Keutschach had to act. Against the will of the powerful trading companies, he put a stop to the export of gold and silver and from then on had Salzburg’s noble metal made into its own coinage.

In earlier centuries it was almost exclusively small silver coins, called pfennigs, that were minted. If somebody wanted to pay a large sum they would have to use hundreds or even thousands, which was very impractical. The well-off were known to use silver bars or foreign gold coins for such payments.

Leonhard von Keutschach put a stop to all this. He introduced a modern system with different sizes and values of coin in gold and silver. Pfennigs remained, as the currency of the average Joe.

Batzen were favoured for medium-sized payments. They were worth 16 pfennigs. For larger payments it was possible to use gold gulden. They were worth the same as 240 pfennigs, a week’s salary for a paid mine worker. Only a few people would ever hold one of these in their hand.

Leonhard von Keutschach’s most famous coin was the turnip thaler, the first Salzburg silver coin to be worth the same as a gulden. The archbishop used the turnip thalers as presents rather than payments. Why were they called turnip thalers? Because of the turnip in the archbishop’s coat of arms. The same turnip could be found on all of Leonhard von Keutschach’s coins.

From the Middle Ages on, high quality medals and coins, desired throughout the empire, were created at the Salzburg mint. Renowned medallists such as Peter and Paul Seel, Philipp Heinrich Müller, Philipp Christoph Becker, Georg Raphael Donner and various generations of the Matzenkopf family created medals and coins which acquired an excellent reputation beyond the borders of Salzburg and still go for top prices at auction today.