As is to be expected, the German-American church artists, who were associated with the Benedictine Altar Building Stock Company in Covington, Kentucky, left a considerable legacy of religious art works throughout that state.

    The town of Covington was blessed with beautiful nineteenth century churches. One of them, the Mutter Gottes Kirche, is considered the mother-church of the local Covington German parishes. It was founded in 1839, and its members began to meet in 1841 in a rented hall on Scott Street. A brick Mutter Gottes Kirche was dedicated in 1842, but the building of that structure had been beset by financial problems. Without the contributions of the Leopoldine Mission Society of Vienna and money collected in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Covington, this early German church could not have become a reality.[1] The Leopoldine Mission Society was the Austrian counterpart of Munich's Ludwig- Missionsverein.

   The Diocese of Covington was established in 1853. At that time there were 1,500 German Catholic families in Covington.[2] Churches were being erected at a rapid rate. They needed altars, statues, and paintings. Many of the art works in Kentucky churches, built for the German-American Catholic immigrants, no longer exist. Fortunately the Mutter Gottes Kirche still dominates the skyline of Covington and is filled with much outstanding decoration dating from the nineteenth century. In 1867 the original church was declared too small for the growing congregation, and the cornerstone was laid in 1870 for a Renaissance Basilica of grand proportions. (Figure 14, Mutter Gottes Kirche, Covington, KY, exterior view). In the interior, the German-American painter Wenceslaus Thien decorated the columns, ribs, and vaults with neo-classical frescoes. Garlands, acanthus leaves, swags of fruit, and floral sprigs create a colorful, joyful mood. Thien is mentioned as a member of the Cincinnati Society of Christian Art in contemporary accounts, and his name appears frequently as a collaborator with painters Johann Schmitt, Wilhelm Lamprecht, and Frank Duveneck.[3] Judging from his first name, Wenceslaus Thien was probably born in Bohemia.  Nothing is known of his life and/or artistic training. There seemed to have been a distinct division of labor among the German-American church artists inasmuch as someone like Thien would only paint abstract decorative motifs in church interiors, whereas Schmitt and Lamprecht worked on figurative altarpieces and murals.

   The interior decoration of Covington's Mutter Gottes Kirche proceeded in stages, due to financial problems facing the parishioners. In 1872 twelve church members and two priests paid for the Stations of the Cross paintings by the Swiss artist Melchior Paul von Deschwanden. Von Deschwanden lived at Einsiedeln, Switzerland, and is said to have completed two thousand paintings between 1840 and 1880 before he died in 1881. It is not known whether the artist ever visited the United States, but his religious works can be seen in a great number of nineteenth century churches with German roots [4]. Von Deschwanden was not the only European entrepreneur who exported art works destined for North America. The Munich-based Mayer Company, specialists in ecclesiastical art, such as stained glass windows and statuary, were steady suppliers for new mission churches. As a matter of fact, the hand-carved wooden statue group, surmounting the high altar at the Mutter Gottes Kirche, was purchased from Mayer & Company.

   As for the Stations of the Cross, they had been a required element of Catholic church-sanctuaries for many centuries. They depict Christ's arduous journey to Calvary in fourteen scenes or Stations. The first scene shows Jesus being condemned to death. In successive scenes he carries his cross along the Via Dolorosa, is nailed to the cross, dies, and in the last and fourteenth Station is laid to rest in the Sepulchre. Traditionally the fourteen paintings of these events are displayed along the lateral walls of the church interior. In German-American churches such paintings are almost always framed in hand-carved, precious wood.

   In 1890 the Mutter Gottes Kirche received additional art works. Although advanced in years, Johann Schmitt painted five large murals in the church.