Westfalen oder Niedersachsen ca. 1510/1520
A carved wood apostle, Westphalia or Lower Saxony, around 1510/1520
Carved three-quarters in the round, the reverse flattened and slightly hollowed out. With exposed remains of presumably original polychromy. A standing figure of a bearded apostle facing slightly towards one side and holding an open book in his right hand. The identifying attribute originally held in his extended left hand is no longer extant. In his now lost expertise from 1960, Professor Erich Herzog (Frankfurt) compared the figure to a "St. James the Lesser" in the former lectern of Osnabrück Cathedral in the Museum Schnütgen in Cologne (inv. no. K 55, currently on loan to the Diocesal Museum Osnabrück). According to recent research, the lectern can be dated to around 1510/1520 and is attributed to the Westphalian artist Heinrich Brabender and his workshop.
With a hairline crack to the shoulder. Minor wear and earlier insect damage with minimal losses to the plinth. Height 60 cm.
Provenance
Lempertz auction 600 A, Cologne, 22.-23.5.1984, lot 1309. - Lempertz auction 920, Cologne, 17.5.2008, lot 1193. - Subsequently private collection, Westphalia.
Literature
For the comparable work "Saint James the Lesser" see "Das Schnütgen-Museum - Eine Auswahl", ed. by Hermann Schnitzler, Cologne 4th ed. 1968, p. 28, cat. no. 170, illus. - Exhib. cat.: Die Brabender - Skulptur am Übergang vom Spätmittelalter zur Renaissance, ed. by Hermann Arnhold, Münster 2005, p. 183-185, cat. no. 42, illus.