An Altarpiece from St. Moritz Church [predella]: Veronica

Like the altarpiece in Neustadt the winged altarpiece in Mittenwalde exhibits a fairly puristic rendition of the Cranach style from this period, but was probably executed with some workshop participation.

[Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, 79, No. 47B]

The artist who executed the Mittenwald Retable was trained in Cranach’s workshop and made use of his templates and preparatory material. He also drew on Dürer prints as inspiration for his compositions. However, a technical examination of this work does not suggest that it was produced in the workshop. The altarpiece was commissioned by Elizabeth of Brandenburg and was probably originally intended for a location in Berlin. The examination results support the theory that it was created in a workshop based in Berlin. A relationship with the Bernau retable should be explored within this context. It would also be of interest to discover whether a workshop in Berlin closely associated with Cranach’s workshop in Wittenberg. Numerous similarities in technique and style with a work in a private collection in Oslo (http://lucascranach.org/PRIVATE_NONE-P142a) suggest that this retable, which depicts the Adoration was painted by the same artist two years later. As Friedrich III is shown on this painting future research should attempt to discover more about the commission and explore the relationship between the Master of the Mittenwald Retable and the electors of Saxony.

[Heydenreich 2016, 149-150]