St Sigismund and St Adalbert

Portraying four patron saints of Bohemia - St Wenceslas and St Vitus in one painting and St Sigismund and St Adalbert in the other one - was the iconographic programme of this and the previous panel. Sometimes, St Adalbert is identified with another patron saint - St Procopius. St Adalbert is depicted with the bishop’s insignia, his crosier being embellished by a painted statue of St Paul and a female saint and his robe featuring the depiction of St Peter. Although these attributes do not support the later iconography of St Procopius (beginning in the 17th century), we believe that the composition of the saints in Spranger’s panels and their aforementioned traditionalism indicate St Adalbert. Because the original provenance remains unknown, the primary function of the panels is difficult to define: they were either separate, meant as collection items for Rudolf II, or they were part of a larger whole, for example an altarpiece.