(active in Swabia/probably Ulm around 1440)
Saint Blaise discovered in his cave by huntsmen,
oil on panel, 92 x 78 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Vienna

We are grateful to Dr. Bernd Konrad for his kind assistance in cataloguing the present painting. A written certificate is available.

Konrad has written on the rare iconography of the present painting: “Blaise of Sebastia [was] a consecrated bishop in Cappadocia, but due to the persecution of Christians under Diocletian fled into the woods, where he lived in a cave. He cured many animals, and since they trusted him, they stayed with him. Not finding any more game, hunters advanced deeper and deeper into the forest, where they found Blaise and arrested him. When he was led back to the governor Agricola, his martyrdom began, which ended with his beheading [...]” He continues: “The drapery betrays the transition from the ‘soft style’ of International Gothic between 1400 and 1420 to its gradual hardening through sharp angles. An interest in the precise description of the landscape arose, which in earlier stages was reflected in schematised rock formations and mushroom-shaped trees, accompanied by an increasing illusion of depth. The view of the town in the background, with its numerous spires, is not based on the painter’s actual experience. However, the rendering of the horses on the right-hand side is rather accomplished. There seem to have circulated many pictorial models of approaching horsemen”

For comparison, Konrad refers to a triptych from the Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn dated to 1432, which is now in the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart. Bruno Bushart published this altarpiece in 1957 (B. Bushart, “Der Meister des Maulbronner Altars”, in: Münchener Jahrbuch für Bildende Kunst, 3, F. 8, 1957, pp. 81–100), situating the workshop in the region of Lake Constance. Konrad points out: “The relationship between the panel of Saint Blaise and the latter work (from the workshop of the Master of the Maulbronn Altar) becomes evident in the representations of Saints Stephen and Mark, traditionally dated to 1442 and also preserved in the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie. As far as the face, figure, and drapery are concerned, Mark the Evangelist is indeed closest to Saint Blaise, although the folds of the former’s clothing are still softer. It is therefore possible that this is not a work by the same master’s hand dating from a later period, but that it was painted around the same time by another painter from the same region, namely Swabia or Lake Constance… Since few paintings from the first half of the 15th century have survived, the present painting is all the more valuable.” The visible preliminary drawing of the faces in the present painting testifies to the vivid hand of this as yet unidentified artist.