Saint Stephen in Dispute with the High Court - a wing of an altarpiece

The present lot is to be associated with the School of the Brixen, in southern Tyrol, south of the river Brenner. In the fifteenth century this local school flourished, with Leonhard von Brixen, Jakob Sunter and Jakob von Seckau as the most important masters. Their work on the vaults of the cloister of the cathedral must have been of great influence on the Brixen School (see A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, etc., X, 1960, pp.152/3), whose style is characterised by exaggerated gestures, oversized heads and hands and the bunching of figures. L. Meyer, in a certificate dated 23 January 1998, attributes the present work to an artist of a generation later than Leonhard von Brixen, to whom it has previously been attributed, and dates it to circa 1470/80. The subject was not uncommon in the south Tyrol, see for instance the picture by the Master of 1448, recorded in a private collection, Basel (A. Stange, op. cit., fig.236) and the picture by Simon von Taisten in the National Gallery, Bratislava. The present picture is likely to have been the wing of an altarpiece, the other wing probably depicting the Stoning of Saint Stephen, and the central compartment probably consisted in one or more sculptures such as the Saint Stephen in the Alpenländische Galerie, Kempten Bavaria (H.P. Hilger, Alpenländische Galerie Kempten, 1991, p.45, no29, with ill.).
The subject is taken from Acts 7:2-56.
Sold with a certificate by L. Meyer, dated 23 January 1998.