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Lot Essay
Although Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460-1531) was born in the town of Heiligenstadt im Eichsfeld, his family soon moved to Würtzburg, where he spent most of his life as a sculptor, joining the Brotherhood of Saint Luke in 1483 and becoming a master in 1485. Riemenschneider was to become one of the most influential sculptors of his generation, and showed his versatility by working in a variety of materials including sandstone and alabaster as well as wood. Among his most important projects was the Holy Blood altarpiece, commissioned by the municipal council of Rothenburg in 1501 (op. cit., p. 29, fig. 5). The present pair of two torchere-bearing figures, with their tall, slim bodies and heavy folds of cloth, recall works such as the Saint Sebastian recently included in the Washington exhibition which was devoted to the artist (op. cit., cat. no. 39B).