GERMAN SCHOOL, CIRCA 1500 | John and his wife with a young Saint Peter;Saint Elizabeth with Zechariah and the young Saint John the Baptist

Possibly Schmutzer collection, Vienna (according to an inscription on the reverse of one of the panels);
Anonymous sale, Vienna, Am Kinsky, 17 April 2007, lots 77 and 78 (as Workshop of Hans Leonhard Schäufelein).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. In John and His Wife with a Young Saint Peter, the panel has been thinned and mounted onto a solid piece of wood. There is a slight curve from right to left. The painting is clean, retouched and varnished. The figures are very nicely preserved, only showing retouching in the woman's face and some spots in the red gown around the legs of the two figures. The sky has attracted numerous retouches, and weakness in the darker colors in the lower left and upper left has also been retouched. In Saint Elizabeth with Zechariah and the Young Saint John the Baptist, the panel has also been thinned and mounted onto a solid piece of wood. The panel is curved from right to left. The painting is clean. Retouches are clearly visible under ultraviolet light in the beard of the man, in the dark green of the woman's gown, in other isolated spots in the figures and in small concentrations in the middle of the child's face in the lower left. The column on the right is in good state. The thin colors of the architecture above the figures has received retouches, and the sky seems to be extensively retouched. The details in the figures remain well preserved. The restoration is good. The works look well and should be hung in their current state.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Though the artist responsible for this curious set of religious panels in the present and following lot remains undetermined, they certainly arose from a German hand around 1500.  In handling and composition, they betray the influence of Albrecht Dürer, suggesting a possible execution by a Nuremberg artist in his circle or close following.  Indeed, they share visual affinities with some signed woodcuts of one of Dürer’s Nuremberg pupils, Hans Springinklee (circa 1490-after 1527), particularly in the renderings of architecture and spatial construction as well as in figural types.¹  The author of these panels seems also to be responsible for a panel depicting the Virgin nursing the Child and a kneeling donor today in the Gumbertus Church in Ansbach. 1.  See, for example, Springinklee's Virgin and Child with Saint Anne (New Hollstein, 6), Nativity (New Hollstein 271), and Virgin and Child With Angels (Hollstein 205). 
2.  An image of this painting is in the Marburg Photo Archive, no. 921.502.