Sabina von Steinbach

Sabina von Steinbach was ( according to legend ) a Steinmetzin the Gothic. Allegedly, she was born in the 13th century as the daughter of the architect at the Strasbourg Cathedral Erwin of Steinbach. When, after the death of her father, her brother John of 1318-39 continued the construction of the tower, said to have been active here and have made ​​sculptures on the portal also Sabina itself.

Officially recognized artistic and creative activity of a woman in a closed circuit of a building works, was almost impossible in the Middle Ages. The traditional assumption that Sabina could still work in this sense, probably goes back to a 1617 first published by Schadaeus description of Strasbourg, which points to their name. Sabina, the two figures of ' Ecclesia ' and ' synagogue ' attributed at the south portal. In the vernacular, the synagogue was considered her self-portrait. In fact, the figures of Ecclesia and Synagoga in 1225 (see Ekklesiameister ), ie half a century before the appearance of Erwin of Steinbach and well before the alleged life of Sabina originated.

Discovery and Responses

Despite hardly verifiable data to their lives Sabina was "rediscovered" in German Romanticism. Although not ruled out that her name and reputation have been passed in the local vernacular, this is probably a - now lost - Latin inscription back, which took place at the figure of a saint in the cathedral: " The grace of God be with Sabina ( SAVINAE ) of their hand made ​​of hard stone I carved as a figure standing here. " A certain fascination with the romance of this female figure can be seen, the Sabina is at work on the figure of the Synagogue in the 1844 resulting oil paintings by Moritz von Schwind. 1864 was conceived as a two counterparts monuments, one for Erwin and one for Sabina, as artist Philipp Grass, which were situated at the south transept of Strasbourg Cathedral. Sabina appears with a hammer and iron as a stonemason tools. Yet a 1914 poem by Ernst Stadler given out has a title that supposedly looking at Sabina " ancient inscription ," and suggests that the artist " the two images of women lifted out of the stone."

Even today you can see the life and work of Sabina - though usually regarded as a legend - interpret as a sign of the creative power of a woman in a persisting tradition in the world. In a very different point of view which is creeping around Sabina legends sentimentalistischen national consciousness are evolving as a product of to the end of the 19th century, seen.

Comments

• German sculptor
• Born in the 13th or 14th century
• Died in the 14th century
• Woman
• Fictional person (female)
• Strassburg Cathedral