Reconstruction of the Bielefeld Altarpiece (open)

religious

One of the key monuments of late medieval painting in Westphalia, completed in 1400, the altarpiece probably made for the high altar of the former Kollegiatstift Sankt Maria und Sankt Georg, now the Neustdter Marienkirche in Bielefeld, was a triptych with folding wings about 6,56 maters wide when fully opened and about 2,18 meters high, including its lost frame. In the open state, it displayed a large central image of the Virgin and Child enthroned in the company of saints, flanked by thirty smaller scenes ranging from God Warns Adam about the Tree of Knowledge, through the life of the Virgin Mary and the Passion of Christ, to the Last Judgment, all on gold ground. The small scenes were arranged in three rows of ten, with the subjects progressing chronologically across each row, skipping over the Virgin and Child at centre, from the upper left to the lower right.

Reconstruction of the Bielefeld Altarpiece (open)

About the Artist

Master Of The Berswordt Altarpiece

German painter. He takes his name from the Crucifixion Triptych in the Marienkirche, Dortmund, which bears the coat of arms of the Berswordt family. The only dated work by him is a dispersed retable of 1400 from the high altar of the Neustädter Marienkirche, Bielefeld. The artist's relationship to Konrad van Soest - whether as a predecessor or as a follower - is controversial, but most scholars now consider the Master of the Berswordt Altarpiece to be the earlier of the two and place his activity mainly in the final decade of the fourteenth century. A location of his workshop in Westphalia has long been postulated on the basis of the concentration of his commissions in that region.

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