The convent of Poor Clares in Breslau and its medieval furnishings

The lost medieval convent of the Poor Clares in Breslau [since 1945 Wrocław] with its gothic furnishings and artworks used for private worship, can be envisioned from iconographical, functional, and inspired by posthumanism analysis of medieval artworks (preserved or known from archival sources), such as: the crucifix (ca 1350), five reliefs from the former main altarpiece (1360–1370); portable quadriptych (1360), panel painting featuring Virgin Mary with Child (1450); the now lost painting with the Tree of Jesse; panel painting featuring Anne of Bohemia (now lost); and a statue of a knight being interpreted as an effigy of Henry II the Pious. The reconstruction offered here delineates the characteristics of Breslau Poor Clares' religious practices and the convent's role in the memorializing the Silesian Piasts. The works of art, created mostly in local workshops between the mid-fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries, are among the highest quality examples of medieval Silesian production. The iconography of objects from the church and cloister corresponds with the most important themes of Breslau Poor Clares' pious and intellectual reflection – the cult of the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus, Incarnation and Passion of Christ. The St Hedwig Chapel was furnished with works intended to preserve the memory of the convent's benefactors from the Breslau Piast line; despite the many burials in the chapel, no consistent visual strategy to prolong the benefactors' memory was introduced.