Master of Mercy

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As a master of the mercies ( Engl. Master of the Acts of Mercy) is called a late medieval painter who in 1460 or 1470 in Passau or Salzburg worked. The artist, who is not known by name, got his emergency name from three panel paintings showing works of mercy . They are wings of an altar painted on both sides, on the main page of the pictures scenes from the life and martyrdom of St. Lawrence or John the Baptist are shown. Two panels painted on both sides can be found in the Städtisches Museum in Trier and a third panel can be found today in the Metropolitan Museum in New York . The panels were part of an altar, to which a fourth panel is added, which is privately owned.

The front and back represent the following motifs:

  • Beheading of John the Baptist / Pilgrim house
  • The feast of Herod / Feeding the hungry
  • Martyrdom of St. Lawrence / The thirsty give water to drink
  • Saint Laurence before Emperor Valerian / Dressing the Naked.

The style of the Master of Mercy is characterized by its particularly realistic and natural representation. Although still clearly medieval in character, the pictures show a preliminary stage of the realism of the Renaissance.

The master is to be distinguished from the master of the seven works of mercy , a painter not known by name, who worked in the northern Netherlands between 1490 and 1510.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Metropolitan Museum, New York, Inv, No. 1981.365.1
  2. ↑ Koller Auctions : Old Master Paintings Lot 3008 Auction: September 2011

literature

  • Ernst Buchner : On the late Gothic painting of Regensburg and Salzburg (= Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Meeting reports. Vol. 6, 1959, ISSN  0342-5991 ). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1959.
  • Ernst Buchner: The Master of Mercy. In: Ernst Buchner: On the late Gothic painting of Regensburg and Salzburg (= Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Philosophical-Historical Class. Session reports. Vol. 6, 1959). Publishing house of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich 1959, pp. 6–10.
  • Walter Dieck: Master of Mercy. Trier altar wings have found their place in art history. In: Trierischer Volksfreund . No. 270, from 21./22. November 1959. Ax. Weekend mail
  • Josef Gassner (Red.): Late Gothic in Salzburg. Painting 1400–1530 (= Salzburg Museum Carolino Augusteum. Annual publication. Vol. 17, ISSN  0558-3438 ). Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg 1972 (catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, May 26 to October 1, 1972).
  • Alfred Stange : German Gothic painting. Volume 10: Salzburg, Bavaria and Tyrol in the period from 1400 to 1500. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich et al. 1960 (reprint. Kraus, Nendeln 1969).
personal data
SURNAME Master of Mercy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Painter in Passau or Salzburg
DATE OF BIRTH 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 15th century