CIRCLE OF VEIT STOSS, NUREMBERG, CIRCA 1510-20

On the basis of a number of stylistic comparisons the limewood figure of a seated Pope offered here can be related to the creative output seen in Nuremberg during the peak of Veit Stoss's career in the early 16th century. This Pope, with its distinctive, exaggerated, wrinkled face, tightly curled beard and large arking swag of drapery is closely comparable to Stoss's St Andrew in St. Sebalduskirche, Nuremberg, (Baxandall, op. cit., fig. 133 and pl. 46) dated to circa 1510-20. These same comparisons can also be extended to the wood relief of the Sleeping St John the Evangelist from the circle of Stoss and dated to circa 1510 now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (Guillot de Suduiraut, loc. cit.). Although the young St. John lacks the intense and wrinkled expressions of the Pope and St. Andrew, he does share the highly idiosyncratic feature of the prominent arcing drapery that is juxtaposed with sequences of improbable paper-like folds.