PAGE 9
Art In The Valley Of Saas
by
I have already referred to the triptych at Gliss. This is figured in Wolf’s work on Chamonix and the Canton Valais, but a larger and clearer reproduction of such an extraordinary work is greatly to be desired. The small wooden statues above the triptych, as also those above its modern companion in the south transept, are not less admirable than the triptych itself. I know of no other like work in wood, and have no clue whatever as to who the author can have been beyond the fact that the work is purely German and eminently Holbeinesque in character.
I was told of some chapels at Rarogne, five or six miles lower down the valley than Visp. I examined them, and found they had been stripped of their figures. The few that remained satisfied me that we have had no loss. Above Brieg there are two other like series of chapels. I examined the higher and more promising of the two, but found not one single figure left. I was told by my driver that the other series, close to the Pont Napoleon on the Simplon road, had been also stripped of its figures, and, there being a heavy storm at the time, have taken his word for it that this was so.
[Footnotes:
{11} Published in the Universal Review, November 1890.
{12} Longmans & Co., 1890.
{13} M. Ruppen’s words run: “1687 wurde die Kapelle zur hohen Stiege gebaut, 1747 durch Zusatz vergrossert und 1755 mit Orgeln ausgestattet. Anton Ruppen, ein geschickter Steinhauer mid Maurermeister leitete den Kapellebau, und machte darin das kleinere Altarlein. Bei der hohen Stiege war fruher kein Gebetshauslein; nur ein wunderthatiges Bildlein der Mutter Gottes stand da in einer Mauer vor dem fromme Hirten und viel andachtiges Volk unter freiem Himmel beteten.
“1709 wurden die kleinen Kapellelein die 15 Geheimnisse des Psalters vorstelland auf dem Wege zur hohen Stiege gebaut. Jeder Haushalter des Viertels Fee ubernahm den Bau eines dieser Geheimnisskapellen, und ein besonderer Gutthater dieser frommen Unternehmung war Heinrich Andenmatten, nachher Bruder der Geselischaft Jesu.”
{14} The story of Tabachetti’s incarceration is very doubtful. Cavaliere F. Negri, to whose book on Tabachetti and his work at Crea I have already referred the reader, does not mention it. Tabachetti left his native Dinant in 1585, and from that date until his death in 1615 he appears to have worked chiefly at Varallo and Crea. There is a document in existence stating that in 1588 he executed a statue for the hermitage of S. Rocco, at Crea, which, if it is to be relied on, disposes both of the incarceration and of the visit to Saas. It is possible, however, that the date is 1598, in which case Butler’s theory of the visit to Saas may hold good. In 1590 Tabachetti was certainly at Varallo, and again in 1594, 1599, and 1602. He died in 1615, possibly during a visit to Varallo, though his home at that time was Costigliole, near Asti.–R. A. S.
{15} This is thus chronicled by M. Ruppen: “1589 den 9 September war eine Wassergrosse, die viel Schaden verursachte. Die Thalstrasse, die von den Steinmatten an bis zur Kirche am Ufer der Visp lag, wurde ganz zerstort. Man ward gezwungen eine neue Strasse in einiger Entfernung vom Wasser durch einen alten Fussweg auszuhauen welche vier und einerhalben Viertel der Klafter, oder 6 Schuh und 9 Zoll breit soilte.” (p. 43).]