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The altarpiece, shown here with open wings, originates from Berzenke.
The altar must have been created shortly after 1500, for it was then that statues were used to decorate the centre shrine of altars instead of the earlier painted figures. As result, the tracery above the heads of the figures and especially the brocade pattern filling in the space behind them to increase the illusion of its being the back of the altar shrine, became gradually obsolete. Although the female saints have a more imposing appearance than the earlier figures, they are still quite slender in build.
St. Anne, represented as a grandmother, holds in her arms both her daughter, the Virgin, and the Infant Jesus. With her on one side is Mary Magdalen, on the other St. Elisabeth of Hungary. This type of St. Anne has its origin in Byzantine art where the Hodegetria, Mother of God, is represented holding the Infant in a similar way. The rigid symmetry of the composition, and the lack of any sense of scale in depicting the saints and the Child indicate the origin of the motif.
The upper part of the left wing shows St. Helen with the Cross she had found, the lower portrays another saint of the Holy Land, St. Mary of Egypt. It was once thought that the latter figure was a representation of St. Elisabeth, a clearly erroneous interpretation, for it is most unlikely that a saint would be represented twice on once and the same altar. The fact that the saint it shown with bread in her hand must have given rise to this mistaken identification. However, in this picture the bread represents the food which Mary of Egypt took with her when she retreated into the desert to live the life of a recluse. This supposition is corroborated by the corresponding figure in the Berki altarpiece where the veil thrown over the saint's shoulders shows that she scarcely allowed herself the garments to cover her nudity. But the painter of Berzenke must have felt that even a hint of such deprivation would affect the dignity of the figure. The right wing of the altar represents St. Sophia and her three daughters, and St. Hedwig with the chapel she founded.
The altar owes its beauty mainly to the pictorial language which contrasts with the brilliance effected by the use of lively local colours. Besides the dominant red and green there are many subtle variations which can hardly be defined.
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