Master of the Reval Legend of Saint Elisabeth

Baron Swansea, Builth Wells, Wales;

Art market, Switzerland;

With Galerie Fischer, Lucerne, 1957;

Probably from whom acquired by John and Johanna Bass, New York;

By whom bequeathed to the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, in 1963 (inv. no. 1963.020).

Deuxième Exposition de Tableaux Anciens de grands Maitres, exhibition catalogue, Geneva 1957, pp. 38-41, cat. no. 18, reproduced;

A. Stange, Kritisches Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder vor Dürer, vol. I, Munich 1967, pp. 210-211, cat. no. 685;

The John and Johanna Bass Collection at Miami Beach, Miami 1973, cat. no. 20;

M. Russell, in Paintings and Textiles of the Bass Museum of Art: Selections from the Collection, M. Russell (ed.), Miami Beach 1990, p. 56, reproduced.

Datable to circa 1499, these four monumental panels probably formed part of a lost double-winged altarpiece dedicated to the Passion of Christ. According to Alfred Stange, the Master of the Reval Legend of Saint Elisabeth was a collaborator of Bernt Notke, one of the foremost painters and sculptors of the late Gothic period and director of a large workshop in the Northern German town of Lübeck. Little else is known about the enigmatic artist, named for his best-known work: four scenes depicting the Legend of St. Elisabeth on the wings of the retable of the high altar of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Tallinn (formerly Reval), Estonia, produced in Notke’s workshop in 1483.¹ 

The two inner wings and the insides of the outer wings depict eight scenes of the Passion: across the upper register are Ecce Homo, Carrying of the Cross, Nailing to the Cross, Crucifixion; and across the lower register are Lamentation, Entombment, Christ in Limbo, and Resurrection. On the verso of the outer wings are four scenes of the preceding events: The Last Supper, Capture of Christ, Christ before Herod, and Flagellation. Similar to the Tallinn altarpiece, the verso of the two inner panels would have likely consisted of carved rather than painted elements. For many of the scenes, the artist drew inspiration from engravings by well-known contemporary artists; for instance, the Ecce Homo in the upper left corner derives from a circa 1475-1480 engraving by Martin Schongauer.²

¹ For a discussion of the works attributed to the Master of the Reval Legend of Saint Elisabeth, see A. Stange 1957, pp. 38-41.

² For one example of Schongauer's engraving: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 58.510.