The Death of the Virgin, attended by the Apostles

Various experts have examined and evaluated the painting. According to the previous owner Prof. Dr. Ernst Buchner was the first to attribute the painting to Lucas Cranach, dating it to about 1518 on the 12. Oktober 1954, Munich. The Cranach expert Dr. Dieter Koepplin, Basel, ascribed the painting to the ‚Master of the Pflock Altarpiece‘, an apprentice to Cranach, in his essay in the Kunstchronik, Bd. XXV, Munich 1972. In a letter from Prof. Dr. Dieter Koepplin, Basel, he refers to the painting as probably by the ‚Master of the Pflock Altarpiece‘, about 1520/25 (Letter from 21.03.2010). Ludwig Meyer, Archiv für Kunstgeschichte Munich is of the same opinion as is Prof. Dr. Ingo Sandner, in his letter from 27.03.2010. Prof. Dr. Dieter Koepplin provided useful information regarding the context of the original commission: "... the subject of the death of the Virgin is not one associated with Luther the order must therefore have come from a dioceses (like Naumburg, Merseburg, Meissen etc.) or the dominion of the Duke of Saxony, where for example Annaberg was located, a place associated with the Master of the Pflock Altarpiece. His name is derived from an altarpiece produced for the Pflock family chapel in St Anne’s church, Annaberg-Buchholz. The anonymous Cranach apprentice created the altarpiece in 1521 for the donor Lorenz Pflock, who was the owner of the silver mines in the region and a councilman in Annaberg. The death of the Virgin is also depicted on this altarpiece in the central shrine. Ludwig Meyer dates the present work to the period between 1518 and 1523.

[Hampel online database, accessed 14.10.2019]