Dubrovacki muzeji - Kulturno povijesni muzej

Altar

Work of a Tyrol artist
Late 15th c.,
tempera and gilding on wood,
bas-relief
113x210 cm

This portable altar represents an interesting combination of a painting and a high-relief with central figures, almost sculptures, of St. John the Evangelist, the older pilgrim St. Jacob, and St. Catherine of Alexandria to the right. The saints are carrying their characteristic attributes: a chalice, a pilgrim's staff, and a spiked wheel. Depicted on the wings on an enchased golden base in lower relief are the following figures: to the left, St. Anthony the Abbot in his monastic habit, with a T-shaped cross in his hand and accompanied by a pig - the demon of lust and gluttony (symbolising St. Anthony's victory over sin), and to the right St. Sebastian, a young martyr whose half-naked body is nailed with arrows to a tree. When closed, the altar forms a diptych with the motif of Annunciation painted on its panels. On the left panel, the Archangel Gabriel is depicted in a speaker's gesture, carrying a staff in his hand around which a roll with the greeting written in Gothic lettering is wrapped. To the right is Virgin Mary depicted in a kneeling posture, who has been interrupted in her prayer. Behind her back is a white dove - the symbol of the Holy Spirit. The altar contains late-Gothic elements with predominating Renaissance features in the presentation of figures and their clothes, which is particularly evident in the scene of Annunciation. The altar was housed in the chapel of the former Benedictine Monastery on the island of Lokrum in the immediate vicinity of Dubrovnik. In the 19th century, Maximilian von Habsburg, the new owner of the island, transformed the chapel into his summer residence. The altar was probably brought from Austria to decorate the chapel which had been empty for centuries (the Benedictines having been expelled by the Republic in the 17th century).