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Lot Essay
We are very grateful to Ludwig Meyer for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.
Published by Alfred Stange (1957, loc. cit.) as a work by a member of the Acker family in Ulm, although datable to that city in circa 1480-90, this picture is in fact closer stylistically to the anonymous Master of the Sterzinger Altarpiece Wings. It is particularly comparable to another work by a follower of the latter: a Saint Barbara in the Unterlinden Museum, Colmar. Both share the idiosyncratically protruding stomach and long, parallel folds of the gown, and it would seem likely that they are at least from the same workshop, although the latter probably predates the present work by roughly ten years. Another work closely comparable to the present picture, conceivably by the same hand, is a Saint Sebastian in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon. Mr. Meyer notes that Thieme-Becker's Künstler-Lexikon (XXIII, p. 592) lists a Peter Maler as active in Ulm in 1480 and suggests that he may possibly be identified as the master responsible for both paintings; to date, however, no works have been securely attributed to him, and such a suggestion must for now remain only a hypothesis.
This would presumably have been painted as part of a triptych for a private devotional altarpiece. Such small scale devotional works were common, frequently being commissions from convents, and it is likely that the other wing would have depicted a matching female Saint, possibly Saint Claire. The tentative identification of the present Benedictine nun as Saint Odile can be inferred from the popularity of Odile, the patron Saint of Alsace and Strasbourg, in the region around Ulm at that time.
Published by Alfred Stange (1957, loc. cit.) as a work by a member of the Acker family in Ulm, although datable to that city in circa 1480-90, this picture is in fact closer stylistically to the anonymous Master of the Sterzinger Altarpiece Wings. It is particularly comparable to another work by a follower of the latter: a Saint Barbara in the Unterlinden Museum, Colmar. Both share the idiosyncratically protruding stomach and long, parallel folds of the gown, and it would seem likely that they are at least from the same workshop, although the latter probably predates the present work by roughly ten years. Another work closely comparable to the present picture, conceivably by the same hand, is a Saint Sebastian in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon. Mr. Meyer notes that Thieme-Becker's Künstler-Lexikon (XXIII, p. 592) lists a Peter Maler as active in Ulm in 1480 and suggests that he may possibly be identified as the master responsible for both paintings; to date, however, no works have been securely attributed to him, and such a suggestion must for now remain only a hypothesis.
This would presumably have been painted as part of a triptych for a private devotional altarpiece. Such small scale devotional works were common, frequently being commissions from convents, and it is likely that the other wing would have depicted a matching female Saint, possibly Saint Claire. The tentative identification of the present Benedictine nun as Saint Odile can be inferred from the popularity of Odile, the patron Saint of Alsace and Strasbourg, in the region around Ulm at that time.