EXHIBITIONS

Museum Schnütgen in Focus:
The Cologne Town Hall Prophets. Sculpture from 1400 for Citizens and Church
19 September 2012 - 7 April 2013

 

Since the Middle Ages, the unique Prophet sculptures from Cologne's Gothic Town Hall were a graphic reminder to the civic representatives of their responsibility to the city and its citizens. The scrolls they hold quote principles of political morality. This group of Gothic Cologne sculptures, a significant part of the city's history, is now on permanent exhibition at the Museum Schnütgen as a loan from the Historical Town Hall.

The exhibition shows the figures together with other sculptural masterpieces around 1400 as well as with documents from the City of Cologne's Historical Archive. In a display case within the exhibition, the Historical Archive is presenting a selection of the sources which throw light on the context of the figures' creation and use in the form of regularly exchanged documents and written records. All exhibits were affected by the disastrous collapse of the building in 2009.