The Master of the Gebweiler Altar Wings Active in Basel towards the end of the 15th Century

The design is based upon Martin Schongauer's engraving of the same subject and can be dated to around 1470-80. The artist takes his name from part of an altar wing depicting The Visitation and Saints Peter and Paul now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg, which originally came from Gebweiler, a town in Alsace south of Colmar (reproduced in Stange, op. cit., 1955, fig. 8). The painter was most probably active in or around the city of Basel on the upper Rhine. Two other panels from the same altarpiece are recorded: a Disrobing of Christ and a Pilate washing his hands; the whereabouts of the former are presently unknown, but the latter was sold, London, Phillips, 10 December 1996, lot 44(for £38,000). Comparison between the Pilate washing his hands and the present work reveals the same decoration on Christ's halo, and the punchwork in the gold-ground background is also identical in both panels. These, together with the present painting and another (probably representing Christ on the Mount of Olives), would originally have formed the inner register of one side of an altarpiece.

We are grateful to Dr. Ludwig Meyer for his assistance in cataloguing this lot.