Von Weiss zu Schwarz – Der Inkarnatfarbenwechsel der Einsiedler Madonna und ausgewählter Kopien.

It is no secret and yet not all pilgrims know that the “black Ma- donna” from the Einsiedeln monastery in central Switzerland, dated in the 15th century, originally had a white incarnate and was painted over in black in 1799. According to a very early documentation, the reason given was the optical regression to the rusty appearance. This colour change for ritual reasons is not considered to be an isolated case. This is assumed to be the case with some black Madonnas in Europe, e.g. from Le Puy- en-Velay, Montserrat and Altötting. But is the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln really a colour change for cultic reasons? Is it still possible, hundreds of years later, to trace the history of this colour change? The article examines these questions from four different angles and first of all evaluates numerous sources of images and literature. Subsequently, the material analytical results of the Black Madonna are presented. These are C14, X-ray and stratigraphic investigations in which the respective color- ants and binders of individual colour layers were analysed by means of FTIR and FTIR-FPA and SEM-BSE/-EDS. The re- sults are complemented by stratigraphic investigations on ex- actly dated copies of graces from the hand of the carver Joseph Kälin from the early 18th century. In this way, the change to the dark incarnate parts can be dated much earlier, the reason for the change in a version tradition can be found and interme- diate colour stages can be uncovered.