Archangel Gabriel
Archangel Gabriel
- Artist
- Master of the Saint Marien Altarpiece
- Artist Dates
- 16th century
- Artist Nationality
- German
- Title
- Archangel Gabriel
- Date
- c. 1524
- Medium
- oil on panel
- Dimensions
- 141 x 44.5 cm (55 1/2 x 17 1/2 in)
- K Number
- K2034
- Repository
- Allentown Art Museum
- Accession Number
- 1961.051.000
- Notes
Provenance
Monastery of Vorau, Styria, Austria; (Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York); sold on 24 January 1954 as Hans Schaeffelein to Samuel H. Kress; gift to the Allentown Art Museum in 1961, no. 1961.51.
Catalogue Entry
Master of the Saint Marien Altarpiece
Archangel Gabriel
K2034
Allentown, Pennsylvania, Allentown Art Museum (61.51.G), since 1960. Oil on panel, transferred to masonite(1) by Suhr about 1953. 53 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (135.8 x 44.4 cm.). Inscribed on banner: AVE MARIA PLENNA DOMINUS TECUM. (Hail, thou that art highly [favoured], the Lord is with thee. Luke 1:28). Figure and decorative details lightly incised. Background heavily worked in gold leaf; gold leaf abraded. Suida-Shapley, p. 24, Cat. No. 4. Allentown, 1960, p. 98. K2035 : Figure 37 ANNUNCIATE VIRGIN. Allentown, Pennsylvania, Allentown Art Museum (61.52.G), since 1960. Oil on panel, transferred to masonite by Suhr c. 1953. 53 1/2 x 17 1/2 in. (135.8 x 44.4 cm.). Figure and decorative details lightly incised. Virgin's halo tooled on gold ground, on built-up gesso. Background heavily worked in gold leaf; considerable restoration, especially in Virgin's robe; gold leaf abraded. Suida-Shapley, p. 24, Cat. No. 3. Allentown, 1960, p. 98. The panels were the outer wings of a triptych. The inner sides of the Kress panels (now New York, William Suhr collection) show a standing St. Dorothy on the verso of the Annunciate Virgin (K2035) and St. Agnes on the verso of Gabriel (K2034). The Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) is shown against a vertical arcade enclosing a window area on gold ground, in the extremely slender format popular in Northern Europe in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The Archangel Gabriel stands at the right, holding a baton with an inscribed spiralling banner. The Annunciation from the right, unusual in the rest of Europe, is often seen in German art. The angel wears ecclesiastical garb, including the crossed stola. The long-haired Virgin kneels at a prie-dieu, her arms crossed over her breast. She is enveloped in a cloak fastened below the neckline. The Holy Ghost flies above her head, surrounded by incised gold rays like those of the Virgin's halo. An Alpine landscape is seen in the background. In all likelihood, the lost central panel which the Kress wings covered when the triptych was closed showed a standing Virgin (crowned as Queen of Heaven) and Child (turned to the left) to whom Dorothy, at the left, extended a rose. The omission of the Christ Child, often shown at Dorothy's side, also argues for his inclusion in the adjacent central panel. The decorative motifs at the top and bottom of the standing female saints in the wings would have extended across the central panel. The original frame for K2034/5 probably continued the decorative motifs shown in the arches. Provenance: According to Suida-Shapley (loc. cit.) from the Monastery of Vorau (Styria, Austria).(2) New York, Rosenberg and Stiebel. Kress acquisition 1954.
References
(1) Karl von Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, 'Der Maler des Flügelaltares von 1524 in der Pfarrkirche in St. Marein ob Knittelfeld und die Verkündigungflügel in der Samuel H. Kress Collection in New York', Studies in the History of Art Dedicated to William E. Suida on His Eightieth Birthday, London, 1959, p. 171) suggested that the technique of K2034 and K2035 is a mixed one: casein, tempera mixed with a little oil. (2) Presumably Augustinian, as that is the only one recorded by E. Hempel and E. Andorfer, Die Kunstdenkmäler Osterreichs - Stiermark, Munich-Vienna, 1951, pp. 300-3.