The pipe-clay figurine production site at Worms. Master, Workshop and Influence of an Exemplary Art-Pottery in the 15th Century.

• Applicant: Dr. Gerald Volker Grimm
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2010 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 192044327

The project that has been scheduled to be interdisciplinary from the beginning has brought far-reaching results, as the identification of a refuse pit in Utrecht as deriving from a former member of the Worms workshop. This production, the association with stove tiles from Hungary and stratified finds from Cologne and elsewhere ensure together with the connection of the mould generations, that have been established before, that some of the figurine types in Worms have been copied elsewhere in the middle of the 15th century. Because the figurines in the Museum of Worms do not derive from stratified layers of the late Middle Ages, in June 2011 a feature from Aachen, dating c 1430-1450, was included into the project. It contains also a variant of the Madonna type Foy, which is one of the main focuses of this study. The more than 900 figurines from the excavation in 1993-94 originate just of a part of the production period, 1425-1460 resp. c 1420-1475/90. The finds have been displaced in the baroque era. But there is evidence for a horizontal stratigraphy. Three pieces of the kiln furniture enclose traces of a real stratigraphy. There some figurines left their marks that can not only be identified by type, but also by mould genealogy. Since the excavations from 1993-94 are known, it is evident that in Worms the greatest complex of figurines, moulds and reliefs from the late Middle-Ages came to light. Because it is linked to works of followers and the products are spread nearly over the whole of Central Europe one can expect groundbreaking results about the dark ages of sculpture between the international style and the late 15th century.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants