UNKNOWN MASTER, altarpiece painter
(16th century)

Saint Andrew Altarpiece

1512
Wood, statue: 123 cm, scenes: 73 x 57,5 cm
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

The altarpiece, shown open here, originates from Liptószentandrás.

The altar is one of the finer products of the Liptó workshop which, however, failed to evolve any markedly individual style. The carving in the shrine is, in fact, similar the main figure decorating St. Anthony's altar in Szepesszombat, a work by the same hand. Animated in the late Gothic style and carved with deep undercuts, it could well be the work of one of the more conservative sculptors of Szepes. Traits showing a more contemporary approach result from the scarcely perceptible influence of Veit Stoss's art, weakened by a series of transmissions and manifest only here and there in the artist's inclination. The position of the carving in the shrine is strange, for there would have been room for two additional figures, one on either side, but from the very beginning it always stood alone. By leaving most of the shrine empty, the artist wished to emphasize the importance of this particular figure. The raised platform within the shrine is also unusual.

The panels on the wings reveal more of the contemporary trends of the second decade of the sixteenth century. They are reminiscent of the products of the Danube School, but being more laboured and quite lacking in animation, they are in fact only distant variants. The influence of the school was probably conveyed by Lucas Cranach who was then becoming rather popular among the painters working east of Saxony.


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