page_title: Naumburg Cathedral and the High Medieval Cultural Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut
section_title: Founder statues – Uta
hierarchical_section_title: Naumburg Cathedral and the High Medieval Cultural Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut / Description of the cultural landscape / Component: Naumburg / Naumburg Cathedral / Founder statues – Uta
caption_attribution_description: English: Uta from Naumburg
context_page_description: The Naumburg Cathedral and the High Medieval Cultural Landscape of the Rivers Saale and Unstrut is situated at the heart of the Federal Republic of Germany in the State of Saxony-Anhalt. Naumburg Cathedral and the landscpae has been proposed by Germany for inscription in the List of World Heritage. On July 1, 2018, only Naumburg Cathedral was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  The landscape around the World Heritage nomination "Naumburg Cathedral" is representative for processes at the High Middle Ages that shaped the whole continent: Christianization, settlement and cultivation processes, the so-called Landesausbau, that took place between 1000 and 1300. This borderland region also bears witness of the intercultural exchange of different cultures in the High Middle Ages. The highest-ranking buildings and works of art, most of all Naumburg Cathedral with its globally unique artistic and iconographic founder figures, provides testimony to the claims to power and the self-confidence of the worldly and spiritual rulers as well as to the region's crucial role as a place of interchange between Western and Eastern realms.
context_section_description: The Early Gothic west choir was built with an elevated gallery portraying the founders. The life-sized representation of a group of 12 people of the high nobility that were neither emperor neither king is unique in art history : ″The twelve founder statues [...] are extraordinary in many aspects. A series of monumental representations of secular male and female founders of the cathedral of Naumburg, the statues are characterized by startling vividness and by theatrical interaction″. The statues are considered ″sculptural ensemble of the major arts″ due to their expressiveness and to the individualized portraits. 
   There cannot be found comparable examples from the same period. 
  One founder couple, Ekkehard II, Margrave of Meissen, with his wife Uta von Ballenstedt, stands in the north. Margravess Uta is presented like a queen with a fleur-de-lis crown. The sculpture of Uta has experienced an unparalleled cult, due considerably to photographs taken by the Naumburger photographer Walter Hege in the 1920s. Umberto Eco wrote in his ″History of Beauty″ that from all women of art history, the one he would like most have dinner with was in first place, ahead of all others, Uta von Naumburg. The founder figure of Uta also found her way in the UFA motion pictures and as the Queen of Disney's Snow White, causing a huge wave of enthusiasm for this icon of gothic art.
caption: Uta von Ballenstedt statue, located in the west choir of the Naumburg Cathedral
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4032", "Image ImageLength": "6048", "Image BitsPerSample": "[16, 16, 16]", "Image Compression": "Uncompressed", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D3X", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2013:07:24 13:22:21", "Image Artist": "", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 0, 255, 0, 255]", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "492", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 2, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1112", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1226", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4518", "EXIF ExposureTime": "15", "EXIF FNumber": "11", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:09:22 17:10:46", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:09:22 17:10:46", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "-3906891/1000000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "6918863/1000000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "550", "EXIF SubSecTime": "05", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "05", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "05", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3000", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "550", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}