The Nativity

The four wooden panels, originally part of an altarpiece, depict the most significant events in the life of the Virgin: the Visitation, the Nativity, the Adorationof the Magi and the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The series, which decorated the inner sides of the wing panels, began at the top of the left wing with the Visitation: the encounter between Elizabeth and the Virgin represented here against the backdrop of a wild wooded landscape. The Nativity followed beneath showing the Virgin and Joseph, the ox and ass as well as three putti gathered around the crib. On the opposite side at the top was an Adoration of the Magi and beneath the Presentation in the Temple. All of these scenes number among the so-called ‚Seven Joys of the Virgin‘ and suggests it was probably a Lady altar, showing the Coronation of the Virgin on the central panel.

The individual panels are very well preserved and boast about 95% of undamaged original paint surface, the luminosity having survived the centuries.[…]

As early as half a century ago the distinguished art historians Max J. Friedländer and Jacob Rosenberg attributed the work to the Master of the Pflock Altar. This painter from the circle of Lucas Cranach the Elder is named after his major work the Family altar of the Pflocks in St Anne’s church in Annaberg-Buchholz. The panels were probably painted about 1520 during a period when the Master was working on the Pflock Altar and another of his important works the so-called Rochlitz Retable.

Despite his proximity to the work of Cranach the Master was capable of lending his works an individual character. In his assessment Ingo Sandner expresses an appreciation of the insufficiently studied Master. ‘Within a Saxon context this painter ranks among the best of his trade and of the Cranach apprentices who established their own workshops he is one of the most remarkable artists.

An expert opinion by Prof. Dr. Ingo Sandner, Dresden from the 28.12.1992 is available.

[Auct. Cat. Bamberg 1995, No. 24]

According to Friedländer, Rosenberg 1979, No. Sup3 the panel together with the Visitation once decorated the inner side of the wing of a retable. The separated external side depicts the figures of Sts Catharine and Margaret and is now in the collegiate rectory St Peter and Alexander, Aschaffenburg [DE_BStGS_13224].

[Görres, cda 2015]