Lot Essay
In a letter of December 1956 to the present owners, Dr. Peter Strieder points out that the small coat-of-arms at upper left in the panel of Christ presented to the People is that of the city of
Nuremberg. The large coats-of-arms are those of the Nuremberg families Schürstab and Gross and these identify the donors of the altarpiece as Sebald Schürstab (1452-1505) and Anna Gross. They married in 1482 and had seventeen children, of which thirteen were evidently alive at the time the present panels were executed. Schürstab was junior mayor of Nuremberg in 1493, senior mayor in 1500 and vormundherr (?)
in 1502. Dr. Strieder suggests that the altarpiece was probably commissioned to commemorate his death in 1505.
Dr. Strieder identifies the artist as a workshop assistant of the painter of the wings of the Agony Altar formerly in the Katharinakirche in Nuremberg and now in the Germanische Museum (Catalogue of Paintings, 1937, no.159), which was probably donated in 1498 by Katharina Harsdörffer to commemorate the death of her husband Ortloph III Stromer. The present representation of The Agony in tne Garden is closely related to that on the Agony Altar
Nuremberg. The large coats-of-arms are those of the Nuremberg families Schürstab and Gross and these identify the donors of the altarpiece as Sebald Schürstab (1452-1505) and Anna Gross. They married in 1482 and had seventeen children, of which thirteen were evidently alive at the time the present panels were executed. Schürstab was junior mayor of Nuremberg in 1493, senior mayor in 1500 and vormundherr (?)
in 1502. Dr. Strieder suggests that the altarpiece was probably commissioned to commemorate his death in 1505.
Dr. Strieder identifies the artist as a workshop assistant of the painter of the wings of the Agony Altar formerly in the Katharinakirche in Nuremberg and now in the Germanische Museum (Catalogue of Paintings, 1937, no.159), which was probably donated in 1498 by Katharina Harsdörffer to commemorate the death of her husband Ortloph III Stromer. The present representation of The Agony in tne Garden is closely related to that on the Agony Altar