MASTER OF THE KRAINBURG ALTARPIECE | The Massacre of the Innocents

Wickenburg collection, Gleichenberg;

With F. Schnittjer and Son, New York;

Their sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 11 February 1943, lot 326 (as South German School), for $180 to E.&A. Silberman.

W. Suida, Die Landesbildergalerie in Graz, Vienna 1923, p. 16, cat. nos 33–36;

O. Pächt, Osterreische Tafelmalerei der Gotik, Vienna 1929, p. 83;

O. Bensch, 'Der Meister des Krainburger Altars', in Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, vol. VII, no. 21, 1930, p. 138;

G. Ring, 'An Austrian Triptych', in The Art Bulletin, vol. 26, no. 1, March 1944, p. 51;

T. Vignević, Der Meister des Krainburger Altars, Ljubljana 1996, pp. 96–97 (as missing).

The Massacre of the Innocents was executed by the Master of the Krainburg Altar, active in Austria between the end of the 15th century and the first quarter of the 16th century.

The panel was part of a now dismantled altarpiece that represented the life and martyrdom of Saint Florian on the outside, and scenes from the youth of Christ on the inside. Pächt was the first to attribute this altarpiece to the artist and dates this panel to around 1490;¹ Bensch accordingly considers it an early work.² The four panels that constituted the left wing of the altar are kept at Museum Johanneum in Graz. The Massacre of Innocents was the upper part of the right wing according to Bensch, along with The Funeral of St Florianus which was identified by Suida in 1923 as part of the Wickenburg collection in Gleichenberg.³ Both panels appeared in New York a few years later, before the present picture was sold at auction in 1943 (see Provenance).

¹ See Pächt 1929, p. 83.

² See Bensch 1930, p. 138.

³ See Suida 1923, p. 16, cat. nos 33–36.