Le décor baroque des Dominicains de Guebwiller et sa restauration en 1711

Abstract

The baroque decoration of the Dominican church at Guebwiller and its restoration in 1711, by Patrick Ponsot The church of the convent oft he Dominicans at Guebwiller (Haut-Rhin) is one of those buildings where the "potential" decoration is the object of an impassioned quest. The partial nineteenth-century cleaning of the lower parts dreamed of creating a Rhenish Sixtine Chapel of the fourteenth-century, as it was hoped that more than 1500 square metres of painting would appear. A resumption of work showed that the stratigraphy was not as simple as the neophytes had imagined. A fine baroque decoration was found between the outer level and the expected medieval masterpieces. The continuation of work on the inside of the western facade (2003-2004) showed that the situation was even more complicated than the first soundings had led to believe, as a 'restoration' of the baroque decoration had occurred in the early eighteenth century. The questions raised by this restoration, from both the technical and theoretical points of view (what do we discover ? what do we insist on preserving and presenting ?), are the subject of this article.