GERMAN, ULM, OR SWISS, LUCERNE, CIRCA 1520 | Anna Selbdritt

Leogang, Bergbau- und Gotikmuseum, 2017-2018 (on loan)

Overall the condition of the wood is very good, with minor dirt and wear to the surface consistent with age. There is evidence of past worming, in particular at the back, and to the sides at the bottom. There are small losses around the base, which may be due to past worming. There is very minor stable splitting to the wood, including some slightly open splits to the base. There is wear to the gilding and polychromy throughout, including a few areas of loss, such as to the Christ Child's nose, and to the gilding of the drapery at the the high points and on the proper left side. The polychromy seems to have been refreshed in areas. There is a modern metal hook at the back for mounting.
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This beautiful Anna Selbdritt group, with its sweet faces and elaborate, crinkled drapery, relates to sculpture from Ulm, particularly that of Niklaus Weckmann; see a version of the same subject from his workshop in the Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart (Lichte, op. cit., no. 79). Interestingly, the present group finds an even closer parallel in an Anna Selbdritt in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zurich, thought to have been made in Lucerne (Flühler-Kreis, op. cit., pp. 231-232). Saint Anne's facial features, and the figures of the Virgin and Child, are mirrored to such an extent that an origin in the same workshop is plausible. Another feature the two groups have in common is the separate hollowing of Anne's head at the back, one that is in turn characteristic of sculpture from Weckmann's circle in Ulm. The groups may therefore have originated either in Ulm, or perhaps in a Swabian-influenced workshop in Lucerne. 

RELATED LITERATURE
C. Lichte and H. Meurer (eds.), Die mittelalterlichen Skulpturen, 2. Stein- und Holzskulpturen 1400-1530: Ulm und südliches Schwaben, cat. Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart, 2007; D. Flühler-Kreis and P. Wyer, Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters: Katalog der Sammlungen des Schweizerischen Landesmuseums Zürich, Zurich, 2007