Wiener Hofwerkstatt

Wiener Hofwerkstatt, important stained glass workshop in Vienna between 1350 and 1430. Partly due to the ambitious political and cultural plans of Rudolf IV (the Founder) and Albrecht III, the Wiener Hofwerkstatt achieved special significance around 1390, placing itself in a leading position in the art of European Stained Glass. It reflects the adoption of the entire abundance of forms and shapes of International Style into the art of stained glass. Typical of the Wiener Hofwerkstatt is the integration of the depicted figures in the surrounding space, the increased importance of architectonic arrangement and the cool, iridescent colouring. Despite the participation of many masters (main masters: Meister der Habsburger Fürstenbildnisse) its works show great stylistic uniformity. Several preserved works show that the Wiener Hofwerkstatt carried out a number of large orders for the court, nobility and clergy around 1400. The "Habsburg windows" manufactured for St. Bartholomew´s chapel in Vienna's St. Stephen´s Cathedral are considered to be its main work (around 1380/90, now in the Historisches Museum in Vienna and in the Austrian Museum of Applied Art). Further works of stained glass were made for the Redemptorist Maria am Gestade Church in Vienna (around 1390, now in the Austrian Museum of Applied Art), Neukloster, Wiener Neustadt (around 1390, now in the Austrian Museum of Applied Art), Ebreichsdorf (Lower Austria, around 1390, some windows in the Austrian Museum of Applied Art and in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York), St. Erhard in der Breitenau (Styria, before 1390) and Viktring Abbey (Carinthia, around 1400/10). In the later works of the Wiener Hofwerkstatt, the three-dimensional shape was modified for the benefit of a more line-oriented two-dimensionality.

Literature: F. Kieslinger, Gotische Glasmalerei in Österreich bis 1450, 1928; E. Frodl-Kraft, Die mittelalterlichen Glasgemälde in Wien, in: Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Österreich I, 1962; Die Parler und der Schöne Stil 1350-1400, exhibition catalogue, Cologne 1978/79; Die Zeit der frühen Habsburger, exhibition catalogue, Wiener Neustadt 1979.