Workshop of Valentin Lendenstreich (active 1485-1506) German, Thuringian, Saalfeld, circa 1500-1505

the bishop saint is depicted with a crippled child at his feet holding a crozier in his right hand and an open bible in his left hand which is covered by a glove over which he wears three rings, on his thumb, index and third finger

The figure is in overall excellent condition, the polychromy and gilding have been partly refreshed. There is some minor wear to the surface consistent with age. There are minor traces of worming. There are some damages and losses to his staff, the lower section is lost. There are small chips at the nose of the child figure and around the base. There is a restoration at the right nostril of St. Valentine.
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The bishop and his companion (lot  41) are finely carved with considerate attention to detail in the treatment of their apparel. The hands are gloved and boast numerous rings, as was the custom on the thumb, the fingers, the middle joints and above the knuckle. The cloak is swept up over an arm and falls in jagged nervous folds, edged by a fringed border. The neckline is carved proud and deep behind the hair with the mitre, once silver trimmed by a broad band.  The face is full of character and appears to be a portrait with pronounced chin cheeks and eyes.  All these features are distinctive elements of Thuringian wood sculpture, in particular the Saalfeld school, where large workshops dedicated to the production of altarpieces are recorded in the late fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth century. Thuringia's location in the central belt of Germany meant that its art combined influences from Franconia in the south and Jena to the north in Saxony. 

A particularly striking comparison can be made between this figure of  St. Valentine and the bishop saint ( lot 42) and the figure of St. Erasmus, circa 1500-05, in the church of Heilsberg bei Rudolstadt, z Z. Wartburg, Eisenach, illustrated by Scherf (p.939) and attributed to the workshop of Valentin Lendenstreich.  A further comparison can be made with the wings from the Wüllersleben altarpiece, now in the Toledo Museum of Art and illustrated by Gillerman, where the painting is dated and inscribed with the name of Valentin Lendenstreich and where the four reliefs figures of saints are attributed to Hans Gottwalt von Lohr (active in circa 1501-1543) who finished his apprenticeship with Tilman Riemenschneider in Wurzburg in 1501. The figures on the Marienaltar of Münchenbernsdorf, which Bier attributed to Hans Gottwald von Lohr in the workshop of Lendenstreich and which Weber attributed to Johann Linde from Saxony, who was first recorded in Jena between 1492 and 1500 and was then recorded in Saalfeld  from 1500, also relate stylistically to our bishops.  A further comparison can be made with the figure of St. Nicholas on the Lippersdorfer Altar illustrated and attributed by Hintzenstern to Johann Linde. 

St. Valentine was the patron saint of epileptics, hence the crippled child at his feet.

RELATED LITERATURE
Weber, Eine Jenaer Altarwerkstatt am Ausgang des Mittelalters.- In: Beiträge zur thüringischen und hessischen Geschichte, Festschrift für Otto Doberecker.- Jena.-1929. S. 217; J. Bier, " Hanns Gottwald v.Lohr, ein Schuler von Tilman Riemenschneiders in Saalfeld", in De Artibus opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky (New York, 1961) fig.6; H. von Hitzenstern, Die Marienaltere in Lippersdorf un Muchenbernsdorf (Berlin, 1963) fig.9, 11, 26 and 32; H.Scherf, " Thuringer Schnitzplastike der Spätgotik" Weltkunst, 1 April 1994 Heft 7; D. Gillerman, Gothic Sculpture in America, Vol II, The Museums of the Midwest (Turnhout 2001) no 271