(active in Southern Germany between 1500 and 1530)
Saint James with the donor Johann Wilhelm von Laubenberg and his son
oil on panel, 96 x 42 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale Sotheby’s, London, 3 April 1985, lot 184 (as “Upper Rhine School, circa 1500”)

Literature:
B. Konrad, Die Meister (der Sammlung) von Sigmaringen – Zur Erweiterung ihres Oeuvres, in: Zeitschrift für Hohenzollerische Geschichte, 42, 2006, p. 26, cat. no. 8, p. 9, fig. 11

We are grateful to Bernd Konrad for confirming the attribution of the present painting (written communication).

This unidentified artist received his name from an altarpiece by his hand with scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary in the collection of the Princes of Hohenzollern in Sigmaringen. H. D. Ingenhoff was the first to identify the Master of Sigmaringen as the brothers Hans and Jakob Strüb of Veringenstadt. Subsequently, the name was thought to comprise Peter Strüb the Elder and his sons, Jakob, Hans, and Peter the Younger. The art of the Strüb family was influenced by the Ulm style and related to such painters as Zeitblom and Strigel. Not only the works of the Master of Sigmaringen, but also those of the Master of Veringen and of the Master of Meßkirch are now attributed to the Strüb family of painters. Bernd Konrad differentiates between four chronologically successive stylistic groups that show a progressive development in the handling of space. He maintains that although the oeuvre as a whole seems consistent and self-contained, it cannot be given to a single artist, but must be assigned to an entire workshop, and points out that there is proof, for example, that both Jakob and Hans Strüb worked in Inzigkofen on an equal footing.

The coat-of-arms reveal that the donor of the present panel of Saint James came from the Laubenberg family in Allgäu. He is depicted in armour and without a helmet and is accompanied by an adolescent, who must be a son. In 1494, Emperor Maximilian I bestowed the brothers Johann Caspar and Johann von Laubenberg with Werenwag Castle and seven villages, most of which were located in the surroundings. According to Kindler von Knobloch (Badisches Geschlechterbuch), Johann Walter, one of Johann Caspar’s sons, and his family lived on Werenwag, from 1509 onwards; in 1524 he donated the parish church of Heinstetten. It seems likely that this also included the commission of an altar.

The question of whether the panel of Saint James once formed the inner part of a wing or was part of a larger panel is unclear. The present panel may have been accompanied by the two fragments sold at Helbing’s in Munich in 1896 as they are approximately identical in height, but they differ in terms of width, which might suggest that they may have been separated by partitions.

Additional image
Infrared image of the present lot