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Updated: May 5, 2025
It confirms therefore my opinion as to the designer of the Saas chapels to find in them no trace of the Varallo Crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at Varallo is only found in chapels wherein Tabachetti worked again appears here. The work is in a deplorable state of decay. Mr.
Ruppen, the present excellent cure of Saas-im-Grund, assures me that there is no reference to the Saas-Fee oratories in the "Actes de l'Eglise" at Saas, which I understand go a long way back; but I have not seen these myself. Practically, then, we have no more documentary evidence than is to be found in the published chronicle above referred to.
Over and above this, there exists in Saas a tradition, as I was told immediately on my arrival, by an English visitor, that the chapels were built in consequence of a flood, but I have vainly endeavoured to trace this story to an indigenous source.
Those, on the other hand, who remain unsophisticated by overmuch art-culture will find them full of character in spite of not a little rudeness of execution, and will be surprised at coming across such works in a place so remote from any art- centre as Saas must have been at the time these chapels were made.
It is true the 8th of September is the festival of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, so that under any circumstances this would be a great day, but the fact that not only the people of Saas, but the whole valley down to Visp, flock to this chapel on the 8th of September, points to the belief that some special act of grace on the part of the Virgin was vouchsafed on this day in connection with this chapel.
Tabachetti, arriving at this juncture, may have offered to undertake them if the Saas people would give him an asylum.
It will be my business therefore to throw what light I can upon the questions how they came to be made at all, and who was the artist who designed them. The only documentary evidence consists in a chronicle of the valley of Saas written in the early years of this century by the Rev. Peter Jos. Ruppen, and published at Sion in 1851. This work makes frequent reference to a manuscript by the Rev.
His features brightened up, he grasped the bottle, filled a bumper, and replied, "Aye, aye, with all my heart; that Toast I would drink in ditch water." We left Ostend at 3 o'clock to take passage in the Bruges canal, and I do assure you we all felt quite sorry to leave our dear, good, honest John Bull. At Saas we fell in with a specimen of Lord Wellington's operations.
And when we see them we shall at once want to go to them that's the way with beautiful things and down we shall go, like flies down a wall, to Leukerbad, and so to Leuk Station, here, and then by train up the Rhone Valley and this little side valley to Stalden; and there, in the cool of the afternoon, we shall start off up a gorge, torrents and cliffs below us and above us, to sleep in a half-way inn, and go on next day to Saas Fee, Saas of the Magic, Saas of the Pagan People.
Mount Calvary is still shown, as at Varallo, towards the left-hand corner of the work, but at Saas it is more towards the middle than at Varallo, so that horsemen and soldiers may be seen coming up behind it a stroke that deserves the name of genius none the less for the manifest imperfection with which it has been carried into execution.
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