Panel with the Patron Saints of Bohemia - Ss Wenceslas, Vitus and Sigismund

Master of the Křivoklát Altarpiece - workshop

Master of the Křivoklát Altarpiece - workshop - Panel with the Patron Saints of Bohemia - Ss Wenceslas, Vitus and Sigismund
The panel painting with the patron saints of Bohemia was one of the exhibits at the Saint Wenceslas Exhibition in 1929; later, it ended up in gallery repositories for decades. The painting aroused attention because of the representative iconography of the patron saints and also the fact that shortly after its publishing an obvious connection was recognized with the depiction of the patron saints on the winged altarpiece of the Křivoklát royal castle (around 1490). The size and iconography of the panel do not rule out that originally it may have been a separate painting or the central painting of a winged altarpiece. The upper painting is severely damaged, stripped of upper modelling in many places; however, it emerges from the fragments that concordances with the Křivoklát altarpiece are visible not only in citations of the figure physiognomies and details of their garments (Saint Vitus, Saint Wenceslas), but also in the very similar painting rendering. Recent comparative research produced new arguments for a single studio provenance that is also based on correspondences in the rendering of the tin reliefs decorating the robes of the saints. The red colour of the relief was not intended; it is a colour of the filling which was an interlayer between the underlay on which the tin relief was applied and the tin foil which has unfortunately not survived. Part of the decoration scheme of Saint Wenceslas' garment was reconstructed by re-drawing the relief details.
date:
measurements: height 165,5 cm
width 137 cm
material: wood
technique: tempera
inventory number: O 1360
gallery collection: Collection of Old Masters