Hans Schnatterpeck

Retable of the altar in the parish church of the Assumption in Niederlana (detail)

Hans Schnatterpeck (* in the middle of the 15th century in Landsberg am Lech ; † probably around 1510) was a painter and workshop owner in Merano .

Life

Hans Schnatterpeck appears as a citizen of Füssen in 1472 . In 1475 he was resident in Sterzing and moved from there in 1479 to Meran , where he first became a Niederitzer and in 1492 a citizen of the city. Documents from the years 1499, 1501, 1503 and 1508 prove his membership in the Merano city council. From 1509 he seems to have stayed in Vinschgau , where his traces are lost in Kastelbell and Schlanders in 1510. Around 1540 a Hans Schnatterpeck was imprisoned in the Merano hospital. But it should have been a son of the same name. The artist would have been around 100 years old at the time.

Schnatterpeck seems to have been the leading workshop owner in Merano between 1485 and 1510. Documents prove the names of various journeymen he employed in his workshop: Hans Peysser, Michael Häberle, Bernhard Härpfer and Matheis Stöberl. His workshop must have received a high degree of appreciation. This is the only way to explain why clients turned to them with unusually high-value contracts for work, such as the one on August 18, 1503, when the master builder Konrad Haug von Niederlana and the church provost Peter Saltner von Oberlana with Hans Schnatterpeck, painter, citizen of the rats signed a contract worth 1,600 (Rhenish) guilders to Meran , the subject of which was a new front or high altar for the newly built parish church of Niederlana, which is now well known as the Schnatterpeck altar .

This is the comparatively highest sum that has ever been paid in Tyrol for a Gothic winged altar. Veit Stoss received 1166 guilders for his Schwazer altar, Michael Pacher for the Grieser altar 700 and for the altar in St. Wolfgang 1200 guilders, Jörg Lederer for the one in Partschins 725 guilders, Hans Klocker for the altar in St. Leonhard 500 guilders. On average, the production of a Gothic high altar in a village church cost between 200 and 500 guilders.

Works

The Schnatterpeck altar in the parish church of the Assumption of Mary in Lana is the only work that definitely comes from his workshop. If other altars or their remains in the burgrave office, in the Vinschgau and in the Sterzing area, which were built between 1490 and 1510, are ascribed a close relationship to his workshop, only stylistic or other hypothetical considerations but not properly proven signatures or documents can be the inspiration. These are the altars of St. Leonhard and St. Kosmas and Damian in the Flutsch in Laatsch, St. Egidius in Kortsch (today in the Johanneskirche), St. Stefan in Obermontani (today in the Bolzano City Museum ), St. Georg in Schenna, a winged altar in the town parish church of Merano , a winged altar from Merano in the Diocesan Museum Bressanone , figures from lost altars in Marling, Tirol and Avelengo. The altar in Niederlana is fourteen meters high and almost seven meters wide, one of the largest Gothic winged altars at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries.

literature

• Christoph Gufler: The parish church Maria Himmelfahrt in Niederlana. 2nd edition, Athesia, Bozen 1997.

Web links

Commons : Hans Schnatterpeck  - Collection of images, videos and audio files