An Attribution for Two Late Gothic Central-European Panels, in English Public Collections, Depicting Episodes from the Life of St
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An attribution for two late Gothic central-European panels, in English public collections, depicting episodes from the life of St. Barbara* Magdalena Łanuszka Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury w Krakowie * he subject of this article is a pair of late Gothic panels, now sep- � This article is a result of research conduct- arated but originally part of one retable: the Flagellation of St. ed between X 2014 and III 2015 at York Art T Gallery for the National Inventory of Conti- Barbara in York Art Gallery (inv. no. YORAG 752 [fig. 1]) and the nental European Paintings. This project was established in 2001 to commission research Martyrdom of St. Barbara in the collection of the National Trust at on pre-1900 continental European paint- Upton House, Warwickshire (inv. no. 446804 [fig. 2]). The panels have ings in British public collections, as a part- nership between the History of Art Depart- hitherto been attributed to the so-called Master of the Schotten Al- ments at Birkbeck, University of London, and tarpiece or to his workshop – although the problem of authorship is the University of Glasgow, and the National Gallery, London. Results of the research and complicated by a debate as to whether there were in fact two masters the project report are added to the online of this workshop (the elder and the younger), rather than one. resource “NICE Paintings: the National Inven- tory of Continental European Paintings”, pub- The Schotten Altarpiece was the high altar of the church in the lished by the Visual Arts Data Service (http:// 1 www.vads.ac.uk/collections/NIRP/index. Schottenstift (Scottish Abbey) in Vienna . 21 surviving panels from php [access date: 31 V 2018]). Both publica- it are now divided between the Schottenstift Museum and the Bel- tions include also a summary of the research which is presented in detail in this article. Ini- vedere, both in Vienna. It was the main commission of the workshop tial funding for the project was provided by of the Master of the Schotten Altarpiece, referred to hereafter in this the National Gallery; substantial grants have been received from the Arts and Humanities article as the Schotten Master 2. One of the most important work- Research Council, the Getty Foundation and th the Kress Foundation. Additional research shops in Vienna in the third quarter of the 15 c., this was extremely has been carried out through the Neil Mac- influential, not only in Austria but more widely throughout central Gregor Scholarships funded by the National Gallery Trust and by Pilgrim Trust research and eastern Europe, where it introduced stylistic elements of early grants awarded to selected museums. I would Netherlandish painting 3. The two sides of the wings of Schotten Al- like to thank Andrew Greg, Director of the project, and Jennifer Alexander, Curator of tarpiece, depicting the cycles of the Passion and the Life of Virgin, Art at York Art Gallery, for their kind sup- port of my work. I would also like to express have been attributed respectively to two different hands by some my gratitude to Richard Green for his very scholars, who supposed the existence of a Schotten Master I (or the valuable comments and research advice both during my stay in York and while preparing Elder) and a Schotten Master II (the Younger). It was assumed that this article. the latter was active towards the end of the 15th c., and the date of 1 The full name was Benediktinerabtei unserer the altarpiece was therefore estimated as between 1469 and ca. 1480. Lieben Frau zu den Schotten (Benedictine Ab- /3/ u ↪Q art Nr 2(48)/2018 fig. 1 Flagellation of St. Barbara, here attributed to J. Siebenbürger, ca. 1470–1480, panel, 73.6 × 54.6. York Museums Trust: York Art Gallery. Image courtesy of York Museums Trust (http://yorkmuseumstrust. org.uk [access date: 6 VI 2018]) Public Domain /4/ Magdalena Łanuszka / Two late Gothic central-European panels, in English collections, depicting episodes from the life of St. Barbara fig. 2 Martyrdom of St. Barbara, here attributed to J. Siebenbürger, ca. 1470–1480, panel, 73 × 54.6. National Trust: Upton House, Warwickshire. Fot. © National Trust Images / Christopher Hurst /5/ u ↪Q art Nr 2(48)/2018 � bey of Our Dear Lady of the Scots). The abbey The date 1469, painted on the panel depicting the Entrance of Christ was founded in 1155 by Henry II Jasomirgott to Jerusalem, was previously assumed to refer to the commissioning of Austria exclusively for the Irish-Scottish Benedictine monks, transferred from the Ab- of the retable, in spite of the fact that such a date in any painting is bey of St. James in Regensburg (also called usually that of completion. The most recent literature has revised Schottenstift). In 1418 the Scottish Abbey in Vienna was transformed into a regular Bene- previous ideas: it now seems reasonable to accept that the Schotten dictine Abbey (for German-speaking monks) but its name Schottenstift was retained. The Altarpiece was completed in 1469 and created by a workshop led by church’s choir, damaged in an earthquake, one main master 4. The most radical proposal concerning this master was reconstructed in 1446–1449, following which the new high altar was commissioned, is that of Robert Suckale, who has identified the leader of the work- and created over the next decades. That 5 th shop as Johannes Siebenbürger . gothic altar was replaced in the 17 c. See H. Ferenczy, Schottenstift und seine Kunst- Johannes (or Hans) Siebenbürger was a painter active in Vienna, werke, Bild. Ch. Merth, Vienna 1980. I would 6 like to thank Dr. Veronika Pirker-Auren- dying in 1483 . He created the Epitaph of Jodok Hauser, who died hammer (Curator of the Medieval Collection, in 1478 (Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna, inv. no.4850 [fig. Österreichische Galerie Belvedere) and Father Augustinus Zeman OSB of Schottenstift in 3]), which is documented by a receipt of 1479 in the Wiener Stadt- Vienna for their kind support of my work. und Landesarchiv 7. Scholars have noticed a stylistic relationship be- 2 He should not be confused with the paint- tween the Hauser Epitaph and the Schotten Altarpiece panels, but er who created the high altar in the Our Lady Church in Schotten (Hesse) at the end of the they also linked the Epitaph to the Crucifixion retable from the St. 14th century. That German master should Florian Abbey near Linz, by the so-called Master of the Crucifixion rather be called the Master of the Schottener 8 Altar or the Schottener Master. See F. Häring, Triptych . The latter was assumed to have been influenced by the Der Schottener Altar, Lahn–Giessen 1976; Schotten Master, and perhaps responsible also for an altarpiece with H. Hysky-Dambmann, D. Oesch, Der Schot- tener Flügelaltar, Altenstadt 2001. the scenes of the Life of the Virgin (now divided between various 9 3 collections) . As Suckale has proposed, the inscription on the Cru- See A. Simon, Österreichische Tafelmalerei der Spätgotik. Der niederländische Einfluß im cifixion Triptych from St. Florian may prove that it was created in 15. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2002, figs. 5, 29, 33– 36, 51, 56, 57, 78, 84. The Netherlandish in- the workshop of Hans Siebenbürger, for it includes ‘IHOANES VII’, fluences discernible in the art of the Schotten where the number seven – German “sieben” – may refer to the artist’s Master derive mainly from the works of R. van 10 der Weyden. See A. Rosenauer, Zum Einfluß name . It should be stressed here that the painter Johannes Sieben- der Niederlande auf die mitteleuropäische bürger obviously came from Transylvania, known in German as Sie- Kunst, [in:] Gotik in Slowenien. Vom Werden des Kulturraums zwischen Alpen, Pannonien benbürgen, meaning “seven cities”. Interestingly, there are a good und Adria. Vorträge des internationalen Sym- th posiums Ljubljana, Narodna Galeria, 20.–22. many 15 -c. Transylvanian panels that are described as being created Oktober 1994, Hrsg. J. Höfler, Ljubljana 1995. by followers or within the circle of the Schotten Master 11. In 1991 Imre 4 The concept of two Schotten Masters was Takács attributed also the Eligius panel (Hungarian National Gallery, promoted mainly by O. Benesch (see e.g. Budapest) to Hans Siebenbürger 12. As he noted, the Abbot of Schot- idem, Collected Writings, ed. E. Benesch, vol. 3: German and Austrian Art of the 15th ten Abbey in Vienna between 1467 and 1475 was Matthias Vinckh and 16th Century, London – New York 1972, p. 266), while W. Buchowiecki and A. Stange (Fink) from Transylvania, and many Hungarian monks were present attributed the retable to a single principle there too at that time 13. While Suckale proposed accepting Hans Sie- master (W. Buchowiecki, Geschichte der Malerei in Wien, [in:] Geschichte der Stadt benbürger as the main master of the workshop that produced the Wien, Hrsg. H. Zimmermann, vol. 7: Ges- Schotten Altarpiece in 1469, he also defined a group of paintings con- chichte der bildenden Kunst in Wien, Wien 1955, p. 27; A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der stituting the oeuvre of that master and his workshop. Additionally, Gotik, München–Berlin 1961, vol. 11: Österre- it seems that Hans Siebenbürger may have worked in Nuremberg in ich und der ostdeutsche Siedlungsraum von Danzig bis Siebenbürgen in der Zeit von 1400 the early 1460s as a painter in the workshop of Hans Pleydenwurff: bis 1500, p. 48. See also F. Häring, op. cit.; C. Reiter, Der Wiener Schottenaltar. Ges- in that case Siebenbürger would be responsible for the predella pan- chichte, Stil und Charakteristika seiner Bild- els of the Behaim Altarpiece from St. Catherine’s church in Nurem- sprache, [in:] eadem, Museum im Schotten- 14 stift.