The Master of the Darmstadt Tree of Jesse Active in Cologne circa 1460 - 1480

The following condition report is provided by Rebecca Gregg who is an external expert and not an employee of Sotheby's. The three member oak panel has completely disjoined. Held into the frame with nails, the panel is currently supported by a single vertical baton attached to the reverse and three small pieces of wood which have screwed into the panel. There are remnants of canvas strips along the right edges of the joins, attached to the reverse. As the panel members are now completely disjoined they are technically stable. They will require re-joining, however this would not be problematic. The paint layers are in a stable condition. There are obviously areas of loss to both the paint and the ground layers, predominantly along the panel joins and at the edges; however, the adhesion between the paint and ground layers and the support is stable at present. Happily the losses do not occur over any significant areas such as the sitter’s faces or hands and the missing paint layers could be reconstructed with the evidence of the remaining original. There are isolated areas of over-paint remaining from a previous restoration campaign; the most noticeable is an area along the upper join on the right side. There is a significantly discoloured, thick natural resin varnish present which fluoresces strongly under ultra violet examination and a heavy layer of surface dirt. The painting was examined in the frame.
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We are most grateful to Ludwig Meyer for recognising that this complex panel is by the same hand as the anonymous author of four altarpiece panels in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt (inv. GK 27 A-D), of which the two inner wings illustrate the Tree of Jesse and the Holy Kinship.  These panels, always associated with the School of Cologne, and thought to have a Cologne provenance,  had earlier been grouped under the School of the Master of the Life of the Virgin, and the Master of the Lyversberger Passion.¹  Stange however associated them with others identified as The Master of the Sinzig Mount Calvary (Meister des Sinziger Kalvarienberges) after an Altarpiece of the Passion in the parish church of Sinzig, on the Rhine north of Cologne.²  More recently however, Beeh correctly recognised that the Darmstadt panels do not belong with the Sinzig Mount Calvary Master, and named their anonymous creator The Master of the Darmstadt Tree of Jesse (Meister der Darmstadter Wurzel Jesse).³  This artist was almost certainly active in Cologne, and, Saint Gereon, who stands at the extreme left behind the male donor in the present panel is a saint closely associated with the city: a soldier who was martyred there by beheading at the end of the 4th century. Saint Gregory of Tours, writing in the 6th century, described Gereon and his men of the Theban Legion as a detachment of fifty who were massacred at Agaunum by order of Emperor Maximian for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods to obtain victory in battle.

1.  See F. Back (ed.), Grossherzoglich Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt.  Verzeichnis der Gemälde, Darmstadt 1914, pp. 32-3, nos 27A-D.  The outer wings each display four scenes from the Passion.
2.  See A. Stange, Kritisches Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder vor Dürer, Munich 1967, vol. I, pp. 72-4: the Darmstadt panels no. 219; the Sinzig altar no. 220.
3. See W. Beeh (ed.), Deutsche Malerei um 1260 bis 1550 im Hessischen Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Darmstadt 1990, pp. 107-111.  In German Tree of Jesse is rendered as Wurzel (Root) of Jesse.