Relief, the Adoration of the Magi, carved, painted and gilded limewood, German (Swabian, possibly Ulm), ca. 1500-1510

The relief is set in a frame with a band of foliate tracery above and attached to the back panel. The Virgin sits frontally on a bench holding the naked Christ Child on her lap. His right arm is raised to bless the oldest kin, Caspar, who kneels to his right side and clasps his hands before his chest in adoration. St Joseph, holding a casket in his right hand, and lifting his chaperon
with his left hand. The king to the right, Balthasar, offers a cup in form of a Traubenpokal to the Child, while his right hand holds the cover. The scene is placed under the roof a dilapidated stable. To balance the composition the black Magus Melchior stands next to the kneeling on the right side, holding his cap in his left hand and a drinking horn surmounted by a seated lion in his raised right hand.
The Christ Child's left hand, the fingers of his right hand, and the tracery apart from that in the top corners, are missing. On either side of the frame are two hinges for the wings, now lost. The back panel comprises seven pieces of pinewood which are held together by the frame and three horizontal wood batons on the reverse. The piece on the extreme left side is a later replacement. The front of the back panel has a layer of fabric and gilded gesso which shows incised ornamental flowers. Melchior's pleated gown, chain, and ear-ring are gilded, and a layer of silver originally adorned his puffed sleeves, boots, hem and hat. The bodice of his jacket is decorated in sgraffito, and on his left arm the letters also in sgraffito: "MELCH". The foot of his horn was originally silvered, the rest of it gilded. Balthasar wears a fur-lined gold mantle with double sleeves. His pilgrim's bag, two shells, knife, boots and hat were formerly silvered. The foot of the cup was also once silvered, the rest gilded. The Virgin wears a white gown with a gilded collar, a white veil with a gilded wrought hairband, and a gilded mantle with an overpainted blue lining. Caspar's fur-lined mantle is gilded, with a jewelled clasp; his boots and hat were originally silvered. St Joseph's mantle is gilded with a blue overpainted lining. His hat was originally silvered, and the gilt casket originally had a silvered base and lid.

Historical significance: The present panel was acquired as Flemish or German in 1856. The date of the acquisition suggests that it probably came from one of the monasteries in the Canton Thurgau which were dissolved in 1848 (Schwager 1982, pp. 65-248) Most of their interior decoration, including altarpieces, manuscripts, books and sculptures were dispersed. Augustin Henckel's series of busts from the choirstalls, for example, formerly in the monastery of St Katharinenthal, are now divided between the Thurgauisches Museum in Frauenfeld and the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle (Knoepfli 1989, pp. 267-73). Wilhelm von Bode believed the present piece to be Swabian, about 1510 (Departmental records). Baum (1911, p.168) dated it around 1500-1510, and ascribed it to the workshop of the "Master of the Blaubeuren altar", now known to be Michel Erhart. Baxandall (1974, p. 28, no.3) rejected Baum's proposal and suggested that it was produced in Ulm by a sculptor working under Erhart's influence. Although both the type and the style are generally based on formulae used in Ulm, at present there is no compelling reason to attribute the relief to an Ulm sculptor. Albrecht Miller has suggested an attibution to the Schaffhausen sculptor Augustin Henckel, which for various reasons is more convincing (personal communication March 1995). Several altarpieces and fragments associated with the workshop of Augustin Henkel do indeed provide close stylistic parallels for 2418-1856. The corpus depicting the Holy Kinship from Unterschächen (fig.*), in the canton of Uri, formerly in the Spitzer collection (Spitzer 1893, no. 784, pl. XII), and now in the Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, Zürich, which is signed AH and dated 1521 (Futterer 1938, no. 65) exhibits similar facial types. Especially comparable are the physiognomies of both the Virgin and the Christ Child. The two pieces also have similar drapery schemes. Two other related reliefs depict the Adoration of the Magi, one on the right wing of the high altar in Stürvis, in the canton of Graubünden, dated 1504 (Poeschel, 1937, fig, 309), and another on the lower register on the right wing of an altarpiece, dated 1519, from Almens, in the canton of Graubünden, now in the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen (fig.*, Grimme 1977, pp 102-4, figs. 191-192b). These are closely similar to the work of Henckel (Miller, 1993, p. 357). Although the iconography of both these pieces differs slightly, the drapery is analogous to the present piece. A comparable drinking horn surmounted by a seated lion held by the black Magus is seen in the relief in Aachen. This however is of slightly inferior quality, probably due to the fact that a range of works was being produced by a large workshop. The altarpiece with the Standing Virgin, flanked by St James the Elder and St Oswald, dated 1507, from the Benedictine nunnery in Berau (dissolved 1817), is from the same workshop; it is now in the Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe (Zimmermann 1985, pp. 288-92). The wings have been separated and are now preserved in the Augustinermuseum in Freiburg. The ornamental floral pattern cut in gesso on the back panel of 2418-1856, on the back panel in Karlsruhe (ibid., fig. p. 289; Westhoff 1996, p. 274), and the two wings in Freiburg (ibid., figs. pp. 291-2) are almost identical. The type and dimensions of the Karlsruhe altarpiece (h. 131cm; w. 129cm; d. 21cm) are very close to 2418-1856, which suggests that the present piece was also fitted with painted wings.

This panel shows the scene at Bethlehem when the three gift-bearing kings arrived to see the infant Jesus Christ. It was probably displayed in one of the monasteries in the Swiss canton of Thurgau. They were dissolved in 1848 when Switzerland was reorganising itself under a new federal-style government.

Clues to its origins are provided by several altarpieces and fragments associated with the Swiss workshop of Augustin Henckel. They are sufficiently close in style to this panel to suggest that it originated in Henckel's shop in Schaffhausen.

2418-1856