Museum
Musée Unterlinden
Gothic convent housing a harrowing altarpiece once used to comfort patients and draw donations.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Musee Unterlinden in Colmar follows the money behind the Isenheim Altarpiece, commissioned around fifteen twelve by Guy Guers, an administrator running a hospital for victims of Saint Anthony's fire. It traces how a medieval order of monks turned alms, pig fat, and a nightmarish image of a suffering Christ into the funding a hospital needed to survive. The thread carries past the French Revolution, to the moment the convent you are standing in sat abandoned and derelict for decades. Listen for the carved pig tucked into the altarpiece, a quiet monastic trademark.
This audio guide was created using AI.