Choir stalls in St. Maria.

About Choir stalls in St. Maria

The Buxheim choir stalls are high baroque choir stalls created by Ignaz Waibl between 1687 and 1691 in the monastery church of St. Maria in Buxheim in Upper Swabia. Following the dissolution of the charterhouse in the course of secularization, it came into the possession of the count in 1803. Count Hugo Waldbott von Bassenheim had it auctioned off in Munich in 1883. When the chair came under the hammer again in 1886, the director of the Bank of England bought it at auction and donated it to the Sisters of St. Saviour's Hospital in London, England, who took it with them when the hospital was moved to Hythe in the county of Kent. When the hospital in Kent was dissolved, the choir stalls were bought back by the county of Swabia in 1980 for 450,000 pounds sterling, which is roughly equivalent to a price of 1.05 million euros. It was extensively restored between 1980 and 1994 and has since been returned to its original location in the former charterhouse in Buxheim.