Stephan Lochner active 1442; died 1451
NG 705 
Saints Matthew, Catherine of Alexandria and John the Evangelist 
Reverse of NG 705 
Saints Jerome, Cordula? and Gregory the Great

Susan Foister, 2024

Extracted from:
Susan Foister; with Rachel Billinge, Marika Spring and Lea Viehweger; and contributions by Lorne Campbell and Allison Goudie, The German Paintings before 1800 (London: National Gallery Global and Yale University Press, 2024).

Oil on wood (oak, identified), 68.6 × 59.9 cm, painted surface 68.6 × 58.5 cm (obverse), 68.6 × 59.9 cm (reverse)

Provenance

The painting was acquired by the brothers Sulpiz (1783–1854) and Melchior (1786–1851) Boisserée from the Cologne dealer Dethier at an unknown date but by 1812.¹ They exchanged it with Count Joseph von Rechberg (1769–1833) in 1814 for part of an altarpiece by Bernhard Strigel (about 1461–1528), which is now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.² The painting was acquired by Prince Ludwig Kraft Ernst von Oettingen‐Wallerstein (1791–1870) in 1815–16 with other paintings from the Rechberg collection as the work of ‘Meister Wilhelm’.³ It was exhibited for sale in London in 1848 as by William of Cologne, along with the rest of the collection, which then became the property of Prince Albert (1819–1861).⁴ The picture was at Kensington Palace in 1854.⁵ In 1863 it was presented to the National Gallery by Queen Victoria as part of a group of pictures given at the Prince Consort’s wish.

Related Works

• (1) Saints Mark, Barbara and Luke (Cologne, Wallraf‐Richartz Museum, WRM 68, fig. 18).

• (2) Saints Ambrose, A Female Martyr and Augustine (Cologne, Wallraf‐Richartz Museum, WRM 69, fig. 19).

Exhibitions

London, Kensington Palace, 1848 (51), as by William of Cologne; NG 1977 (11); Cologne 1992 (45); NG 1992a (1).

Technical Notes

The painting was cleaned and restored in 1970. The paint of the obverse is in very good condition. There are some tiny paint losses, the largest in the blue dress of Saint Catherine above her hands. The gilding is quite worn and has been strengthened but much of the original gold remains. The silver leaf of Saint Catherine’s sword and wheel spikes is a little worn in patches but only slightly tarnished. Saint John’s chalice was originally gilded; the yellow layer now visible is an underpaint. There may be some loss of a thin dark green glaze in parts of Saint Matthew’s cloak.

The reverse is very damaged, with large areas of paint and ground missing, leaving the wood of the panel exposed in many places. Most of the female saint and some floor just below her is still present but only the upper parts of the two male saints, donor figure, architectural columns and background are preserved. All areas that would originally have been gilded, such as the haloes, have been scraped away; this was apparently done deliberately, as adjacent painted areas such as the heads have been preserved.

The support is an oak panel consisting of three boards with vertical grain, 10 mm thick. There are two joins 15.7 cm and 36.6 cm from the left (obverse) edge of the panel measured at the top, butt‐joined and aligned with dowels. The right‐hand join is not vertical, positioned approximately 39.4 cm from the left at the bottom. The panel has been cut top and bottom in an irregular fashion. On the reverse, traces of ground and paint extend to all four edges, but on the obverse there are borders of exposed wood left and right that would have been covered with a frame moulding. Dendrochronological analysis has shown that the wood originates from the Netherlands/western Germany. Board I is made from the same tree as board IV of the Saints Mark, Barbara and Luke panel (see Related Works). The youngest heartwood ring is from 1402 (as given in Chapuis 2004a); assuming a median of 17 sapwood rings and 10 years storage, the panels are likely to have been used from 1429 onwards.⁶ However, the London and Cologne panels are a pair, and the results from the latter are more relevant as the youngest heartwood ring is from 1431. The usual estimate for western European oak of a minimum of 7 sapwood rings and a median value of 17 gives an earliest felling date of 1438, or a statistically probable felling date of 1448 (see p. 507).

Both the obverse and reverse have white chalk grounds (confirmed by EDX analysis). On the back the ground is directly on the wood but on the front there is canvas of a relatively fine weave (18 threads per cm) laid over the panel before the chalk ground was applied. In all the paint samples taken from the back there was a thin translucent layer directly over the ground containing a few black particles of either dirt or pigment.

Infrared reflectography revealed extensive careful underdrawing for the whole composition, executed in a liquid medium with a brush (fig. 1) and consisting of outlines, with detailed hatching and crosshatching to indicate areas of shadow. The drawing of the faces is schematic: eyes are indicated by circles and noses and mouths by dashes. Many of the outlines are drawn with short overlapping strokes that suggest the fixing of a design transferred to the panel by tracing or pouncing. The saints are all types seen in other paintings from the Lochner workshop, so the outlines may have been transferred mechanically from models and then developed with extensive hatching and crosshatching. On the reverse, underdrawing similar in style is also present (fig. 2).

The main part of the gold background has a damask‐like pattern in low relief. The repeat pattern was transferred to the panel using a pricked cartoon: in one area, coinciding with a border line in the design, charcoal particles, elsewhere sparsely scattered on the ground, form a dot clearly visible with a stereomicroscope where the gold has been worn away , (fig. 3). The main outlines were marked out with shallow freehand incised lines joining the dots. The deep vertical grooves in some parts of the pattern, mimicking gold thread, [page 492] [page 493] [page 494] [page 495] [page 496] were carved into the chalk ground (fig. 4). The gold was then applied but not burnished. No coloured bole layer is visible, but a yellowish translucent layer can be seen with a stereomicroscope in some areas where the gold is worn and cross‐sections revealed a similar layer immediately below the gold leaf. Analysis indicated that the layer, the mordant used to adhere the gold, was essentially unpigmented and was based on the type of recipe seen in historic documentary sources where oil was boiled or mixed with various driers, or sometimes oil and resin.⁷ The strip 4.7 cm wide at the top of the panel is not patterned; it is water‐gilded onto a very thin layer of red earth or bole and may have been burnished.

The gold leaf of the haloes is also water‐gilded on a thin layer of red earth or bole (confirmed by sampling). All the haloes are decorated with elaborate patterns executed with a very fine dot punch (fig. 7). The patterns are variations of motifs using stars, except for Saint Catherine’s halo, which has an outer border of flowers and clouds emanating a radiance.

Saint Catherine’s crown, in contrast, is unburnished gilding, applied on the same unpigmented mordant used for the relief background. To distinguish it from the surrounding halo, the area was first underpainted with pale pink opaque paint consisting of lead white and vermilion (fig. 8). The gold is outlined in black paint with hatched shadows and jewels are depicted with red and green translucent paint applied over the gold (fig. 5). The pommel and hilt of the saint’s sword are mordant‐gilded in the same way. The blade of the sword and the blades of the broken wheel in front of her are silver leaf, both with black outlines and hatching (fig. 6). Again, a sample shows the same translucent film as a mordant for the metal.

Saint John’s chalice was also originally mordant‐gilded, but only traces of gold where paint was applied over it, for example beneath the snake, Saint John’s thumb (fig. 9), the remnants of black outlines and detailing in black or with lead‐tin yellow. Traces of red lake and a translucent green above the saint’s hand, again over gold, suggest that there were coloured jewels in the diamond shapes around the stem. The yellow paint now visible is chiefly lead‐tin yellow mixed with some lead white and red lake and is an underlayer applied to the area to be mordant‐gilded; it performs a similar function to the pink layer under Saint Catherine’s crown.

The paint medium was identified as linseed oil on both the obverse and reverse by GC–MS analysis of samples from the green paint of Saint Matthew’s robe (obverse) and foliage (reverse), the red paint of the cloak of Saint Catherine (obverse) and lining of Saint Cordula’s(?) cloak (reverse), the white paint from the drapery of the angel in the left‐hand corner (obverse) and background to the right of Saint Gregory’s shoulder (reverse) and from a sample of pale blue‐grey drapery of Saint Gregory’s robe (reverse).⁸ The oil was generally heat‐bodied and the more translucent green and red paint samples included a small amount of pine resin in addition.

On the obverse, Saint Catherine’s flesh is painted with lead white tinted with small amounts of vermilion, red lake and a bright yellow (possibly) earth, with black added in the shadows and pure white for the highlights (surface examination). The features are drawn using an opaque brick red, probably red earth. Her blue dress has a greenish‐blue azurite underpaint with an unevenly applied ultramarine layer over this (confirmed by sampling); both blues are mixed with some lead white. Her red cloak appears unusually dark in infrared reflectography and the texture appears uneven. Sampling revealed that the opaque red underpaint is a mixture of vermilion, black and red lake with lead white in lighter areas; the presence of black explains the lack of penetration with infrared reflectography. The thick red paint on top consists of large red lake particles in a cloudy whitish matrix. EDX analysis indicates that some zinc is present, probably introduced as zinc sulphate, either as a component of the pigment or separately as a drier. The green lining of the cloak is similar to Saint Matthew’s green cloak. The pendant cross around Saint Catherine’s neck is painted in imitation of gold, using lead‐tin yellow highlights over a dull yellow earth base (fig. 10).

Saint Matthew’s flesh is similar to that of Saint Catherine, with more red pigment. His grey‐purple robe [page 498] consists of azurite, red lake and lead white (surface examination). His green cloak was sampled and consists of layers of paint containing copper‐green pigment, probably verdigris, mixed with lead‐tin yellow ‘type I’ (confirmed by EDX ) and some lead white.

The angel’s wings are painted with natural ultramarine over a pink underlayer (lead white and vermilion) left exposed in places for the secondary lights; the highlights are lead‐tin yellow. The stole is ultramarine with lead‐tin yellow crosses. The white robe has purple shadows containing some azurite and red lake in addition to white.

Saint John the Evangelist wears a white robe with similar purple shadows. The lining of his cloak is a red lake and white over a pale mauve underlayer. EDX analysis indicated a zinc content in the red layer, as in Saint Catherine’s cloak. Like Saint Matthew’s angel, Saint John’s eagle is painted over a pink underlayer.

On the reverse, the white background where sampled contained no pigment other than lead white. The pink of the floor tiles, made up of lead white and red earth, was painted first and a green glaze of verdigris mixed with some bone black was superimposed on alternate tiles. Although no gilding remains, traces of gold visible with the stereomicroscope beneath the surrounding paint indicate that the haloes, the papal tiara, the borders of Saint Gregory’s cope and the female saint’s palm (fig. 11) were originally gilded. Traces of black outlines and lead‐tin yellow details on top of gold suggest she had a gilded crown (figs 12, 13).

The female saint’s flesh is painted with a mixture of lead white and a little vermilion and some red lead. Her features are indicated with lines of red earth. Her red dress has a vermilion underpaint with red lake glazes in the shadows; the highlights are red lead. Her green cloak consists of an opaque underlayer of lead white, verdigris and yellow earth. The shadows are modelled with thick green glazes, with black added in the darkest areas. The purple lining is [page 499] a mixture of red lake and lead white, with azurite in the lighter areas and indigo in the shadows.

Saint Gregory’s blue cloak in the shadowed part consists of an underlayer of azurite and lead white with a darker, greyish‐blue layer on top of indigo and lead white. The yellow patterns are lead‐tin yellow. His flesh consists of lead white mixed with yellow, vermilion, red earth, black and azurite. Saint Jerome’s red cloak in the shadowed part has an underlayer of lead white, red lake and a little vermilion, with red lake mixed with lead white over it. As in the red lake paint on the front, there was zinc present either as a component of the pigment or added as a drier. HPLC analysis indicated that the dyestuff was probably extracted from kermes (Kermes vermilio) (Planchon).⁹ The donor’s flesh is vermilion mixed with lead white. His purple robe contains red lake mixed with a blue that is probably indigo.

Subject

On the obverse, Saint Matthew on the left is accompanied by the angel believed to have dictated his gospel to him. He is writing in a book with a brownish‐red cover, evidently leather tooled with a floral motif and five golden metal studs on each side; a purplish bookmark with two pink tassels hangs below the spine. The text consists of short vertical strokes and is not intended to be legible. The angel’s blue stole is decorated with yellow crosses.

Saint Catherine, in the centre, wears a golden crown. At her feet are the remains of the spiked wheel on which she was tortured, but which was shattered by divine intervention. She holds the sword by which she was martyred. Around her neck is a tau cross with a bell, more usually the attributes of Saint Anthony (fig. 10). Smith plausibly suggested that this refers to the legend that Saint Catherine was converted to Christianity by a hermit; Saint Anthony was usually shown as a hermit.¹⁰ Saint Catherine does not wear such a pendant in the small paired panels of saints attributed to Lochner and his workshop in Cologne, or in any other work associated with Lochner in which the saint appears.¹¹

On the right is Saint John the Evangelist. He has a pen case and ink bottle suspended from his belt, with which to write his gospel. At his feet is the eagle that appeared to him while he was on Mount Patmos. He holds a chalice from which a serpent appears, symbolic of the poison that, according to his legend, he was forced to drink but which he consumed without harm. Saint Matthew and Saint John’s haloes have patterns with variations of motifs using stars, while Saint Catherine’s has an outer border of flowers and clouds emanating a radiance (figs 8, 14; see also Technical Notes).¹² The cloud motif may be compared to the showers of radiance seen in the halo of the Virgin in the Presentation in the Temple in Darmstadt, although it is not identical, and to the clouds with radiances seen close to the angels near the [page 500] Virgin in the Altarpiece of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral (fig. 15).¹³ The saints stand on stony ground in front of a gilded background with a design of pomegranates similar to patterns seen in damask‐weave textiles.¹⁴ The same design is seen in the background of the Annunciation scene on the outer face of the Altarpiece of the Magi in Cologne.¹⁵ The saints’ haloes overlap the patterned background at the top, suggesting that it is intended to represents a textile hanging suspended behind them.

On the reverse, Saint Jerome on the left can be identified by his red cardinal’s hat. Saint Gregory the Great on the right wears a pink papal tiara and is identified by the remains of the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, shown close to his ear. He holds a book: the pages are ruled and red initial letters are legible as (left page) ‘O’, ‘N’, ‘I’ and (right page) ‘A’, ‘Q’, but the black letters consist entirely of short vertical strokes and were not intended to be legible. Between the two male saints stands a female figure dressed in a green cloak over a red robe, who holds an object with the shape of a palm branch indicating that she is a martyr; it has been scraped down, but it was originally executed in gold leaf (fig. 11). Traces of black lines around the top of her forehead (fig. 13) might indicate the lower edge of a golden crown outlined on the gilded halo in a manner similar to Saint Catherine’s on the obverse (fig. 14): there are also the remains of black lines in the area of the halo, which suggest there may have been similar upright elements of a crown (fig. 12). The figure’s fair hair, which extends in waves down both sides of her shoulders, is pulled back in a manner indicating that she wore either a crown or a headdress of some kind. She was originally identified as Saint Ursula and in the 1913 and 1929 catalogues, tentatively, as Saint Catherine (despite the fact that Saint Catherine appears on the obverse of the panel).¹⁶ Levey, observing ‘slight traces’ of a crown and noting that Saint Ursula usually also carries an arrow or book, suggested that she might be Saint Cordula, one of the virgins of Saint Ursula, who escaped the martyrdom by arrows of the saint and her maidens by hiding in the boat but offered herself for martyrdom on the following day.¹⁷

Saint Ursula and Saint Cordula, one of the 11,000 virgins who followed Ursula into martyrdom in Cologne, share most attributes, such as a book, the arrow by which both died, or the ship, by which both arrived at Cologne. As her only personal attribute, Saint Ursula as the leader of the virgins sometimes carries a flag with a cross, or is accompanied by the 11,000 virgins, as for instance in Lochner’s Altarpiece of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral (fig. 15).¹⁸ Ursula is also commonly depicted with open hair and wearing a crown, although in the Martyrdom of Saint Cordula of about 1500 Cordula also wears a crown (fig. 16).¹⁹ In a depiction of Saint Cordula in the thirteenth‐century stained‐glass window in the Basilica of St Cunibert, Cologne, she wears a wreath in her hair instead and stands in a miniature boat, holding a lance and a palm branch (fig. 17).²⁰

Owing to the lack of individual attributes and the fluidity of Ursula’s and her fellow virgins’ iconography, it is not possible to identify the female saint with any certainty, but it seems likely that she may be Saint Cordula. Although the painted surface of the panel is damaged, the central part of the figure with her hand holding the palm is relatively well preserved, and it is clear she could not have carried any other attribute, although the possibility that an attribute stood on the floor to the left or in the area of loss where her feet would have been located cannot be excluded.

The figures are separated by two grey pillars and stand on a green and pink chequered floor. The X‐radiograph [page 501] shows that the pillars are square in section and that they are intended to be stone (mortar courses show clearly). To either side of the right‐hand pillar near the elbows of the saints are small areas of green, apparently intended as foliage, and further traces of green are found near the left edge halfway down the figure of Saint Jerome. Across the lower edge of the panel are traces of paint forming a narrow dark red strip, above which is a pale pink band 1.6 cm deep with an underdrawn line marking its boundary with the tiled floor.

Below what has been preserved of the figure of Saint Gregory, where all other paint has been removed, an area of paint remains that shows the head of a man, on a smaller scale than that of the saints. He wears a purple robe under a black cloak, with the upper part of the white cross of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem visible on his left shoulder. His identity is discussed further below (see The Donors).

The Cologne Panels

Two paintings now in the Wallraf‐Richartz Museum in Cologne (figs 18, 19), originally the front and back of a single panel, form a pendant to NG 705. The panel was first recorded in the collection of Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824) in 1824; the separation of obverse and reverse appears to have taken place between 1825 and 1826.²¹ The panel that formed the obverse measures 105.5 × 58.1 cm and the reverse 86 × 58.4 cm; they are thus considerably taller than the National Gallery panels, which have been cut top and bottom, but similar in width. The former obverse has carved tracery top and bottom, evidently original (see Function and Original Ensemble below).²² It shows the pair to the two evangelists of the London panel, saints Mark and Luke, with Saint Barbara; the latter is frequently paired with Saint Catherine, who is represented in NG 705. Saint Mark is depicted with his attribute, the lion, and Saint Luke is shown with an ox; he also holds a small painting of the Virgin and Child, depicted by the saint. Saint Barbara is shown with her attribute, the tower in which she was imprisoned to keep her potential suitors at bay. The former reverse depicts the pair to the two Church Fathers of the National Gallery panel, Saint Ambrose in a bishop’s mitre, wearing a golden morse and holding a cross, and Saint Augustine with a crosier, holding a heart pierced with an arrow. Between them is a female figure holding a book in her left hand and the palm of martyrdom in her right; on her head she wears a wreath of green leaves. In the first reference to this panel in the Wallraf collection [page 502] in 1824, she was identified as the martyr Saint Constantia, or Constantina, the daughter of the Emperor Constantine, represented in medieval imagery as a princess wearing a crown.²³ Merlo thought she might be Saint Catherine, while Zehnder suggested she might be, like Cordula, one of Saint Ursula’s maidens.²⁴ Her wreath has suggested her current cautious identification as Saint Cecilia.²⁵ The Cologne panel also includes a donor figure wearing a purple robe and a black cloak that bears the eight‐pointed Maltese cross of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, similar to the one worn by the donor in NG 705; he holds a rosary. An inscription at the lower edge of the panel identifies him as ‘Fr[ater] heynricus zeuwelgyn. Laycus’, a lay brother of the order of Saint John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller.

The Donors

Heinrich Zeuwelgyn, the donor in the Cologne panel, has usually been identified with Heinrich Zeuwelgyn of Lövenich, [page 503] Cologne, one of the four sons of Heinrich Zeuwelgyn and Aleid von Mauwenheim, who had documented connections to the order. In 1386 Aleid von Mauwenheim sold property to the Cologne order of Saint John.²⁶ Two of the four sons, Heinrich and Arnold, were recorded from 1381 or 1386 as members of the order of Saint John.²⁷ The remaining two were Johann, a monk at St Pantaleon in Cologne, and Hermann, Abbot of St Pantaleon.²⁸ It has been suggested that Arnold Zeuwelgyn is the donor in the London panel.²⁹ He would presumably have been identified in an inscription but this part of the painted surface is now missing. Records show that both brothers were still alive in 1435, when they may already have been over 70, and that Arnold held the position of verger at the church of Sts John and Cordula until 1438.³⁰ No other member of the Johannite order with the name of Zeuwelgyn or Zeuwelgin has been identified. However, several other Zeuwelgins are recorded in Cologne in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries.³¹ The relationships [page 504]between these individuals remains unclear.³² If the London and Cologne panels can be dated to the mid‐ to late 1440s (see Attribution and Date), the brothers, if still living, might have been well into their eighties; this casts some doubt on the identification of the donors. However, it is possible that Heinrich Zeuwelgyn is commemorated here after his death, and that his companion represented on NG 705 was another unidentified associate or member of the family, rather than his brother.

Original Location

The earliest references to the London panel acquired by the Boisserée brothers before 1814 do not mention its origins (see Provenance) and the earliest reference to the Cologne panel in 1824/5 similarly omits any reference to its original location.³³ Later, Merlo and Firmenich‐Richartz made a connection between the Maltese cross on the donors’ robes and the Cologne church of Sts John and Cordula, the church of the order of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem.³⁴ The church of Sts John and Cordula was rebuilt from 1388, following a fire that destroyed an earlier church of the order.³⁵ It housed a reliquary containing the arms of saints Cordula and Margaret, and the life of Saint Cordula was celebrated in wall paintings there.³⁶ The altars in the church were dedicated to saints John the Baptist and Sylvester, Saint Stephen, Saint Michael, the apostles, the Holy Cross and the Virgin.³⁷ None of the church’s altar dedications appears to have an obvious correspondence with the saints who appear on the London and Cologne panels but a now missing element may have reflected the dedication appropriately (see below).

The earliest reference to the Cologne picture when in the Wallraf collection in 1824/5 identified the female saint on the reverse as Constantia, a saint whose relics were also in the church of Sts John and Cordula, rather than Cecilia, as currently identified.³⁸ Saint Augustine’s presence in the Cologne panel might pay deference to the fact that the order of Saint John conducted itself according to the rule of Augustine.³⁹ However, as Levey observed, it cannot be stated with complete confidence that NG 705 was originally from the church of Sts John and Cordula.⁴⁰

Function and Original Ensemble

It has usually been assumed that the London and Cologne panels are the shutters from an altarpiece with a single central panel, now lost. The closed shutters would have shown the two kneeling knights of the order of Saint John with the four Church Fathers and two female saints, and the open faces the four evangelists with, again, two female saints. The disposition of the figures suggests that the National Gallery panel must have been the left‐hand shutter and the Cologne panel the right‐hand shutter. Neither shutter is in its original state, but the inner side of the Cologne panel seems to be closest to this (despite being split from the outer side), being considerably taller and retaining original carved tracery at top and bottom, even if it may not be precisely in its original form or position. The gilding between the top of the haloes and the tracery above them has been renewed, extending part of the way under the tracery and taking the form of a Gothic arch, but the rest of the wood under the tracery at the top and the whole of the bottom is bare.⁴¹ The blue paint on the tracery appears to be azurite, which suggests an early date as opposed to a nineteenth‐century reconstruction, and there are traces of gilding, as well as some red paint.⁴² The arches show some similarity to those of the tracery on the upper part of the Altarpiece of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral, but the pattern is not identical.

The presence of the carved tracery has led to the suggestion that the central panel might have been a carved rather than a painted scene, perhaps a shrine for a relic.⁴³ A Cologne triptych of the Virgin from the early fifteenth century has tracery at its base not dissimilar to the pattern of the Cologne panel, as well as arched tracery above; it once included a now missing sculpted image of the Virgin in a central compartment surrounded by painted saints (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie).⁴⁴

The panel that was the reverse of the Cologne shutter, with saints Ambrose, Augustine, Cecilia and the donor, formed the exterior of the original altarpiece’s right wing. It is not as tall as the surviving separated interior side, having been cut, but the bottom edge would have aligned with the bottom of the floor on the inner side, so that the top of the main painted area would have coincided with the top of the gilded relief damask pattern. Through X‐radiography, an indentation or depression created for a hinge, filled with a material that absorbs X‐rays, has been discovered at the left edge near the bottom, at the height of the painted floor (fig. 20).⁴⁵ There may have been a corresponding hinge at the upper left, but this would have been lost when the panel was cut.⁴⁶ Since the hinge is at the left on the outer side, it [page 505] could not have served as a connection between a shutter and a central panel. The previous reconstruction of the altarpiece with a central panel covered by two shutters is therefore incorrect.⁴⁷ Instead, it has been proposed that the hinge demonstrates that the altarpiece originally incorporated another component, now lost, in a gap in the centre, so that the shutters did not meet when closed.

A comparison with surviving altarpieces from Cologne illustrates the type of original ensemble in which NG 705 and the Cologne panel may have been incorporated. The mid‐fourteenth‐century high altar of the Cistercian monastery Marienstatt Abbey features a risalit or avant‐corps at the centre of its central panel (fig. 21) and the Altarpiece of Saint Clare in Cologne Cathedral of a similar period incorporates a tabernacle in the middle of its central panel (fig. 22).⁴⁸ In neither case do the shutters cover the protruding central element when the main shutters are closed, but instead there are narrow additional shutters.⁴⁹ [page 506] The Marienstatt Altarpiece displays prominent hinge marks on the edges of both wings, which demonstrate that two narrow shutters were originally attached to the wings in order to cover the central risalit. The central tabernacle of the Altarpiece of Saint Clare, on the other hand, can be concealed behind a single narrow shutter attached to the altarpiece’s right wing. Since this creates an asymmetric appearance when the altarpiece is opened, the single shutter can be folded backwards at a 90‐degree angle, therefore disappearing behind the right wing, and the altarpiece retains a symmetric composition.⁵⁰ As no evidence of hinges has been found in NG 705, there must have been only a single additional shutter, now lost, once connected to the Cologne shutter and enabling it to close over the central element of the ensemble. This was conceivably an image of the Virgin.⁵¹

The donor on the reverse of the Cologne shutter gazes upwards and must have looked towards a figure on the upper tier of the lost element covering the risalit when the shutters were closed.

Attribution

The London panel was first attributed to Stephan Lochner by Waagen in 1854. In the Oettingen‐Wallerstein ‘Grundbuch’ (inventory of the collection) of 1817–18 and catalogue of 1826 it was described as the work of ‘Meister Wilhelm’, the name around which other early Cologne pictures had been grouped, including those now associated with the Master of Saint Veronica.⁵² Kugler in 1854 also recognised the Cologne picture as the work of ‘Meister Stephan’, the name associated with the painter of the Altarpiece of the Magi in Cologne Cathedral.⁵³ Reiners and Förster thought that NG 705 was from Lochner’s workshop, while Lippmann associated it with the Master of the Heisterbach Altar.⁵⁴ All recent opinion has considered the London and Cologne panels among the core group of works in the Lochner group.⁵⁵ The validity of attaching this group of works to the name of the documented painter Lochner is discussed in the biography (p. 490).

The high quality of the painting and punched gilding of the well‐preserved front of NG 705 is comparable to other major works generally agreed to form part of the Lochner group, such as the Presentation in the Temple, dated 1447, in Darmstadt, and the Martyrdoms of the Apostles now in Frankfurt (fig. 23).⁵⁶ The extensive use of a system of hatching and crosshatching indicative of shadow and volume in the drapery for each figure in the underdrawing of NG 705 is a distinctive feature of paintings in the Lochner group, including the Darmstadt and Frankfurt paintings. There is less drawing of detail here than in some more complex narrative compositions, such as the Martyrdoms of the Apostles or the Last Judgement (Cologne, Wallraf‐Richartz Museum), where there are also numerous changes to details at the underdrawing stage, or in the Presentation in the Temple, in which a child seen in the underdrawing was eliminated in painting.⁵⁷ However, the boundary between gilding and figures and the static nature of the composition in NG 705 would have allowed scant scope for changes in pose, and with such a simple figure composition there was little need for adjustment once the outlines and areas of light and shade had been underdrawn. The degree of damage to the reverse of NG 705 makes the quality of the painting there difficult to assess, and there is correspondingly little underdrawing visible, but in the case of the saints on the obverse, the high quality of the painted surface and its detail suggests Lochner’s personal responsibility; the underdrawing for such a relatively simple composition might well have been carried out by an assistant.⁵⁸

It is probable that the figures on both sides of the London panel followed workshop models: similar standing saints occur in a number of other works associated with Lochner.⁵⁹ For example, in the less accomplished small panels of saints in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, which appear to have been the products of the same workshop, the Magdalen is shown in drapery closely resembling that of Matthew, while her face is similar to that of Saint Catherine (figs 24, 25).⁶⁰ The degree to which Lochner himself was involved in both the preparation and execution of commissions must have varied according to their importance but also according to workshop practice, which can only be inferred.

Date

Both the London and Cologne panels have undergone dendrochronological analysis. The dating of the boards of the London panel indicates that they are likely to have been used after 1429 (see Technical Notes). However, the youngest heartwood growth ring of one board of the panel in Cologne dates from 1431, suggesting an earliest possible felling date of 1438 and an earliest possible usage of 1440 (assuming 7 sapwood rings and a minimum storage time of 2 years). A more probable felling date of 1448, based on central European sapwood statistics, would give a date of usage from 1450 to as late as 1458, after the date of the death of the documented Lochner in 1451 (see biography, p. 490).⁶¹ In that case the NG panel would belong to the Lochner group on stylistic grounds but would have been painted by a Cologne painter other than the documented Lochner.

As Zehnder has observed, the freedom in the placing of the figures, the developed treatment of space, the colouring and the facial features in the London and Cologne panels are all strongly reminiscent of the Darmstadt Presentation in the Temple, dated 1447. Zehnder compared the underdrawing of the Cologne and London panels to that of the Darmstadt picture, and Faries also drew parallels between the underdrawing of these works, where crosshatching is used and where, although there is less underdrawing to be seen than in the Darmstadt picture, the same graphic vocabulary is evident.⁶² The style of crosshatching in the Darmstadt panel seems closely comparable to that seen in NG 705. The style of dress also appears similar: the belts worn by the adults in the 1447 Presentation and in the NG and Cologne panels are low but not excessively so and differ from, for instance, the very low‐slung belts worn by some men in the undated Frankfurt Martyrdoms of the Apostles, a style common in the early part of the fifteenth century. Stange compared the figures of saints in the London and Cologne panels to those in the damaged Nuremberg Crucifixion, which has been dated to the 1440s on dendrochronological evidence.⁶³ The figures may also be compared to the Frankfurt Martyrdoms of the Apostles (most likely the shutters of the Cologne Last Judgement), which cannot be dated by dendrochronology as the support is walnut.⁶⁴

NG 705 seems overall most closely comparable to the Darmstadt Presentation of 1447 in the styles of both painting and underdrawing, and is therefore on stylistic grounds probably a late work in the Lochner group, contemporary with or even later than the Darmstadt painting. This is supported by the dendrochronological evidence supplied by analysis of the Cologne panel.

Select Bibliography

Levey 1959, pp. 60–2; Smith in Zehnder, Smith and Legner 1977, p. 44; Zehnder 1990, pp. 234–9; Zehnder 1993, p. 320; Billinge 1997, pp. 56–67; Chapuis 2004a, pp. 271–3 (and pp. 141–5); Baum 2012b, pp. 25–7; Spring 2012b, pp. 94–7. See also Schaefer in Baum and Schaefer 2013, pp. 119–21; Baum 2014, pp. 292–5, no. 22.

Notes