Karner Unserfrau

The Karner in Unserfrau stands south of the parish church of Mariä Geburt in a quiet village in Lower Austria. Built near the end of the 12th century, it served as a crypt chapel for the Fürstenberg family from about 1783 to 1843. The small stone building is protected as a listed monument. Inside, a two-bay ribbed vault rises above a barrel-vaulted crypt below. Two pointed windows light the south wall and a blocked tracery window sits in the half-round apse. A Baroque porch with a flat-arched doorway and a balustrade of pyramid finials was added in the late 18th century, leading down to the burial vault. The chapel’s walls and vault are covered by a single scheme of wall paintings from about 1520. Bold foliage patterns frame scenes of the Last Judgement, healing miracles and exorcism by a bishop-saint. Christ and the apostles kneel in Gethsemane on the apse wall, while saints line the lower zones and prophets emerge from the vault ribs. Traces of burning and a brief inscription from 1571 hint at later religious strife.