The New International Encyclopædia/Riemenschneider, Tilman

RIEMENSCHNEIDER, rē'menshnī'dẽr, Tilman (c.l460-1531). A German sculptor of the Renaissance. He was born at Osterode, in the Harz Mountains, and in 1483 appears at Würzburg as a journeyman carver. He soon became one of the most influential citizens, being elected Burgomaster in 1520. In the religous troubles during the following years Riemenschneider was the head of the reforming element and sided with the peasants during the Peasant War. When the reaction came in 1525 he was expelled from the council, and from this time until his death in 1531 he lived in retirement. His principal works include the monument to Eberhard of Grumbach, in the Church of Rimpar (near Würzburg); “Adam and Eve” (1493) on the south portal of the Liebfrauenkirche at Würzburg, and the statues of Christ, John the Baptist, and the Apostles on the buttresses of the same church (1500-06); a Madonna and the tomb of John Trithemius in the Neumünsterkirche (1493); the portrait statues of the Bishops Rudolf of Scheerenburg and Lorenz von Bibra in the Cathedral. His masterpiece is the monument to the Emperor Henry II. and his wife Kunigunde in the Bamberg Cathedral (1495-1513). Other well-known works are the “Bewailing of the Body of Christ” (1508), a group in the church of Heidingsfeld, and his last work (1505), a high relief of the same subject in the church of Maidbrunn.

Consult his biography by K. Becker (Leipzig, 1849), and A. Weber (Würzburg, 1888), and the heliotype edition of his works by Streit (Berlin, 1888).