Master of the Bidpai

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The master of Bidpai was a late Gothic thriller of woodcuts and panel painter , active around 1460 until the 1470s in Ulm and perhaps earlier in Urach . The emergency name refers to very high quality woodcuts in the book of the examples of the old wise , which was published in 1483 by Lienhart Holl in Ulm in a very beautiful edition. It is a collection of fables and stories ( called Panchatantra in research ), which had spread from India all over the world and whose author was named Bidpai (possibly from Sanskrit: “the wise”).

The artist was influenced by the Ars Nova of old Dutch art, called Jacques Daret and the Master of Flémalle , the first generation of the Dutch.

By comparing styles, the draftsman was also assigned panel paintings, among other things. a.

  • an altar from around 1460 (Dietenheim Altar), the panels of which are scattered:
    • Rejection of Joachim's victim and the Golden Gate in Rottenburg,
    • Annunciation and Birth in the Metropolitan Museum New York,
    • Offering in the Temple and the Nativity of Mary in the Johnson Collection Philadelphia,
    • Adoration of the Magi and the Temple of Mary in Fischingen im Thurgau, Switzerland.
  • Altar from Wiblingen, 1470s:
    • Birth and Adoration, Ulm Museum (acquired from a private collection in Rheinfelden in 1981),
    • Depiction, death of the Virgin, private collection in Rheinfelden (?)

The art historian Alfred Stange assigned him several more panels in 1957. He gives him - together with the master of the Sterzing altar wings - an important position in the early days of the so-called Ulm School and assumes that he was a teacher of Jörg Stocker and Bartholomäus Zeitblom . This is viewed with skepticism today.

In 2014 Regina Cermann put forward a further thesis to identify the further work. She holds the draftsman of the Ulm Bidpai for the 1470 in Urach at the court of Count Eberhard in the beard documented Peter painter, who was responsible for the first time there in 1463 for the illustrations of a history Bible for Eberhard. This could have moved to Ulm around 1482.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The book with its woodcuts is made available on the Internet: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek : Johannes de Capua Das buoch der Weisshait der alten Wise, Holl print from May 28, 1483 (digital view)
  2. ↑ Regina Cermann: Stephan Schriber and the Uracher Hof including a new interpretation of Count Eberhard's palm in the beard . In: New Research. City, castle and residence of Urach. Edited by State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg and Klaus Gereon Beuckers (Art History Institute of the University of Kiel), Regensburg 2014, pp. 53–83, here pp. 62–63.
personal data
SURNAME Master of the Bidpai
BRIEF DESCRIPTION late Gothic tear from woodcuts and panel painters
DATE OF BIRTH 14th century or 15th century
DATE OF DEATH 15th century or 16th century