Group from an altarpiece showing Mary Salome and Zebedee, carved and glazed limewood, Tilman Riemenschneider, Würzburg, Germany, ca. 1505-1510

Mary Salome is seated on a cushioned throne, turning her body to the left. In her right hand she holds an open book on which her left hand is resting. She is dressed in a waisted gown over which is draped a mantle falling from her left shoulder. She wears a coif with a long scarf extension (called a Steuchlein in contemporary German inventories). The half-length figure of Zebedee stands behind her, resting on his left elbow, and holding a closed book in his right hand; he is expressively depicted as an elderly man with sunken cheeks, his gaze fixed on the observer. He wears a chaperon with two falling ends and is clad in a buttoned robe.

The group is made from one piece of wood, with the exception of the lower part of Zebedee's left hand which was carved separately and inserted, and two irregulary shaped pieces in the back. The back has been slightly hollowed out. The border of the waisted gown and the book cover are decorated with punch marks in the shape of a cross. The left vertical edge of the throne bench is bevelled, indicating that the relief was not originally attached directly onto a back panel as suggested by earlier scholarship.

The piece has been restored along the base, and a wedge of wood of an irregular shape has been fitted under the left side of the edge at the front. The tip of Mary Salome's nose and the lower left section of the bench are replacements, the latter in pine fixed with an iron nail. The tassels of the cushion are missing. The figure was seriously worm-infested at some point, and the holes were filled with wood plugs. Patches of fabric have been glued onto the back. The relief is covered in a dark glaze and the pupils marked with black paint. The inscription ANNO.1300.gemacht./1817.Ren: is inscribed in black paint on the back. Although the date to which the piece was assigned (1300) is clearly wrong, there is no reason to doubt that it was restored ('Ren.' - renoviert) in 1817. This may have been when the additions to the base and other areas were made, and perhaps when the group was divorced from the original altarpiece. A label on the bottom refers to the loan of the relief to the 1961 exhibition of German art in Manchester.

Historical significance: At the time of acquisition in 1878 the group was attributed to George (Jörg) Syrlin (Dubouloz 1878, p. 57; fig.). When published in 1885 by Bode it was attributed to the Master of the Creglingen altarpiece together with 6994 & 6995-1860 (see cat. no. 27). However the ascription to Tilman Riemenschneider in 1900 by Tönnies has not been subsequently questioned. The general consensus (Winzinger 1951, p. 137; Baxandall 1974 p. 48; Esser 1986, p. 241) that the sculptures must be relatively late, about 1520-5, was questioned by Freeden (1951, p. 347), although he did not give an alternative date. Bier (1930, p. 47-48) was in favour of a date of about 1505, and Muth (1982, p.176) plausibly argued for a date of about 1505-10. A St Anne figure in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum (Exh. Washinton/New York 1999, no. 30), which is stylistically closely related to the group in Stuttgart, might come from the Annenaltar of the chapel of St Mary in Rothenburg which was produced by Riemenschneider in 1505/6. The former also shows the same decoration on the border of the mantle as on that of Mary Salome in London, an incised semicircular pattern with a line, although this is a common decorative technique applied to Riemenschneider's wood sculpture. Kalden (1992 p.119, note 435) related the style of the present relief to the Last Supper in the Holy Blood altarpiece in Rothenburg, which is dated 1502. The head type of Zebedee however was either reiterated or anticipated in the predella of the Creglingen altarpiece, of about 1506/7, where the top figure on the right side next to the seated Christ in the scene Christ among the Doctors exhibits the same facial features (Vetter 1996 fig. 25). This comparison seems to support a date of about 1505-10.
The group of St Anne's daughter Mary Salome and her husband Zebedee was, according to Winzinger's reconstruction (1951, pp. 129-137), attached to the right wing of an altarpiece of the Holy Kindred. At the centre of the corpus would have been the so-called Anna Selbdritt, comprising two reliefs of the Virgin with the Child and St Joseph and St Anne seated with her three husbands Joachim, Cleophas and Salomas. The latter (h. 115cm), formerly in Russia, probably in the Botkin collection in St Petersburg, was sold in the early 1930s. It subsequently entered the Schmitt collection, Berlin, and is now in a private collection in Tiefenbronn, currently on loan to the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich. The location of the left-hand relief from this scene is presently unknown. In this reconstruction the left wing of the altarpiece would have shown a relief of Mary Cleophas and her husband Alphaeus (h. 115cm, w. 49cm), formerly in the Oettingen-Wallerstein collection at Harburg, and since 1994 housed in the Württembergisches Landesmuseum in Stuttgart (Meurer 1995, p.185; Exh. Washington/New York 1999, no. 36A). Bier (1978, pp. 114-16) demurred on this point, however, and followed Demmler's argument (1932, p. 210), comparing the Munich group with a plaster cast in Berlin of the London group. He asserted that the figures of the latter were deeper, different in scale, and that the form of the throne differed in certain respects. He thus concluded that the groups in Munich and Stuttgart, which are the same height (115 cm), belonged together while 110-1878, being over four centimetres taller, came from a different altarpiece, (although Demmler admitted that he knew the piece now in Stuttgart only from photographs). In 1951 Winzinger corrected some of Demmler's points, and his proposed reconstruction, a shallow corpus for the Munich group and the missing group with the Virgin, the Christ Child and St Joseph, and correspondingly deeper wings for the group in London and Stuttgart was criticised by Baxandall (1974, p. 48), who argued that there were no analogies for such a retable and that "the unequal depths are more probably due to the demands on space of a fully modelled background in the corpus". Vetter/Walz (1980, pp. 68-9) criticised the disproportion of the groups in the centre, particularly the dominance of the figures of St Anne's husbands in Winzinger's reconstruction. They suggested these groups might be based on a woodcut depicting Anna Selbdritt of 1501 by Master AG, printed by Anshelm, where St Anne is offering the Christ Child a fruit. Esser (1986, p. 241) suggested a reconstruction with a larger corpus and wings, a dominating Anna Selbdritt in the centre, and adequate space for the six children, an important point which had previously been neglected. Vetter/Walz and Esser still supported Winzinger's reconstruction of the London and the Stuttgart groups each being attached to the wings. This reconstruction was probably based on the Twelve Apostles altarpiece from Windsheim, now in the Kurpfälzische Museum in Heidelberg (Paatz 1963, fig. 42, 43). However, 110-1878 and the group in Stuttgart, which has a bevelled edge on the right side, may have formed part of the corpus, flanking the Anna Selbdritt, surmounted by tracery, with wings showing narrative reliefs. The bevelled edge on the left side of the throne of 110-1878 and the direction in which Mary Salome faces suggests it was placed on the right side of the central group, so that the group would have been placed on an angle looking towards the central scene. The three groups were re-united in an exhibition in the Bayerische Nationalmuseum in Munich in 2000; this confirmed that they did indeed belong together, although the illustration in the catalogue (Exh. Munich 2000 pp. 24-5) shows the reliefs in Stuttgart and London positioned flatly against the backboard; the missing group and the one now in Munich were probably originally placed on a plinth c.10-15cm high to emphasise their dominance in the corpus and to allow the inclusion of children below. (The three groups were examined after the closure of the exhibition and the photograph (fig.*) which was taken on this occasion shows the three groups, posssibly in their original position.
Another related relief which has not hitherto been considered in this context, is the monochrome limewood group of the Virgin and the Child and St Joseph, (h. 120 cm), formerly in the collection of Karl Roettgen, Bonn (Clemen 1905, p. 218, no. 42; Clemen 1912, p. 49, no 232, pl. 2). In 1950 it was on the Cologne art market (Lempertz sale, Cologne, 6-8 December 1950, lot 682); but the present location is unknown. According to Clemen this relief (fig*) was acquired in Nuremberg. It depicts the seated Virgin on a throne holding the naked Christ Child with an apple in his left hand; behind the Virgin is the half-length figure of St Joseph. Howeverthe inferior quality of the carving - although it is of a similar height to the present relief - excludes the group from Riemenschneider's œuvre; as a product of his workshop it perhaps represents the closest reflection of the now lost prototype from the left of the centre group. A relief of the Holy Kindred depicting the three couples with their children by a pupil of Riemenschneider in the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt, may reflect the configuration of the three groups under discussion here, although the Virgin and St Joseph are placed there on the right side, next to the group of Mary Salome and Zebedee (Woelk 1999, pp. 397-400, no. 88, pl. XXVI). Another closely related composition based on Riemenschneider can be found in the corpus of the altarpiece of the Holy Kindred in the St Anna Chapel in Wallerstein (Wiese 1923, fig. 6). Several other fragments in the Mainfränkisches Museum, Würzburg, stylistically associated with this altarpiece, were produced in Riemenschneider's workshop: a pair of figures of the Virgin and St Joseph (h. 114 cm; w. 48 cm) together with a pair of St Anne and Joachim (h. 118 cm; w. 42 cm) (Muth 1982, no. 42) would probably have formed the central group of another altarpiece of the Holy Kindred, made in about 1505. Furthermore a smaller figure, probably representing St Anne or Mary Salome (h. 51 cm) reflects the composition and style of the present relief. According to Muth (1982, no. 69) it was made in about 1520-5.
The altarpiece to which the present relief belonged formed part of a series of altarpieces by Riemenschneider produced during the first decade of the sixteenth century:
1. A Passion altarpiece in Detwang, 1500-5 (Oellermann 1996, pp. 13-44; Vetter 1996, pp. 45-93; for an early date, Kahsnitz 1997, p. 67);
2. The Holy Blood altarpiece, 1502-5, in the church of St James in Rothenburg (Bier 1930 pp. 11-42; Vetter 1996, pp. 83-93);
3. A "St Anna taffel", a Holy Kindred altarpiece, for the chapel of the Virgin in Rothenburg, 1505-6, now lost; (a seated St Anne figure in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum and a relief depicting the Adoration of the Magi in the British Museum, London, probably formed part of it (Bier 1930, pp. 44-55; Kahsnitz 1997 p.18; Exh. Washington/New York 1999-200, pp. 277-9, no. 30));
4. The Creglingen altarpiece, 1506-7 (Bier 1930, pp. 56-85).
5. The Twelve Apostles altarpiece from Windsheim, 1509, now in the Kurpfälzisches Museum, Heidelberg (Poensgen 1955, pp. 7-27).
Although much attention has been paid to the altarpiece of the Holy Kindred to which 110-1878 belonged, certain questions remain unresolved, including the provenance, and its original context and the format. The copies based on it imply that it was an innovative prototype of the first decade of the sixteenth century.

Bought from Léon Gauchez, Paris in 1878.

This group of St Anne's daughter Mary Salome and her husband Zebedee originally formed the right wing of an altarpiece of the Holy Kindred. The central scene would have depicted the seated St Anne and her primary daughter the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, and behind them St Joseph and St Anne's three husbands, Joachim, Salomas and Cleophas. On the left wing was a relief with her daughter Mary Cleophas and her husband Alphaeus (now in the Württembergishes Landesmuseum, Stuttgart). The reliefs would not have been painted, as was customary, bust instead covered with a translucent monochrome glaze, as in many other altarpieces by Riemenschneider.
The cult of St Anne had by the end of the fifteenth century become increasingly popular throughout Europe, often celebrated by brotherhoods dedicated to that particular saint. The elaboration of the imagery of the Holy Kindred with St Anne, her three daughters and their families was connected with her growing veneration.

The altarpiece to which the present relief belonged formed part of a series of altarpieces by Riemenschneider produced during the first decade of the sixteenth century.
One of the greatest scultors of late Gothic Art in Germany, Tilman Riemenschneider (ca. 1460-1531) specialized in wood-carving. A contemporary of Albrecht Dürer, he spent most of his career in the German city of Würzburg and was one of the most prolific and talented carvers of the Middle Ages and Christian Art. He worked in both wood and stone.

110-1878