The Winged Altarpiece of Our Lady from Seeberg (ca. 1520) is a Late Gothic altarpiece originally located in the Church of St Wolfgang in Seeberg (today Ostroh). The sculptor, known as the Master of the Marian Altarpiece from Seeberg, received his training in the workshop of the Bavarian sculptor Hans Leinberger, and so the works of the two artists are similar in style and date from the same time. The workshop of the Master of the Marian Altarpiece from Seeberg was most probably located directly in Cheb, where it combined the local woodcarving tradition of the successful workshop of Hans Maler with the contemporary fashionable style of the Danube School. The altarpiece from Seeberg is one of the few outstanding works of Late Gothic sculpture to have been preserved in the Cheb region. It is displayed in the permanent exhibition of the Gallery of Fine Arts in Cheb.
History of the altarpiece from Seeberg
In the older literature the anonymous woodcarver was also known as the Master of the Altarpiece of St Jodoc, but it was not until 1974 that Ševčíková said the altarpiece originally came from the Church of St Jodoc in Cheb, without giving any evidence for this. On the other hand, the altarpiece is repeatedly documented by researchers as having been in the Late Gothic presbytery of the castle Church of St Wolfgang in Seeberg. This 13th-century castle, which originally belonged to the town of Cheb and then from 1434 to Kaspar Schlick, was purchased in a considerably dilapidated condition in 1461 by Kaspar Juncker of Seeberg (Burgrave of Cheb and diplomat in the service of King George of Poděbrady). Juncker founded the Church of St Wolfgang on a separate promontory opposite the castle on the other side of the River Seebach. The construction of the church was completed by his widow Anna Schlick, who is buried with him in the church. From 1497 the castle belonged to the brothers Konhrad and Jošt of Neuberg (Neiperg), and after 1527 to the four sons of Konhrad of Neuberg.
Konhrad of Neuberg commissioned an older altarpiece with the scene of the Lamentation of Christ (1498) and a Marian altarpiece with the figures of the bishops St Wolfgang (patron saint of the church) and St Nicholas (patron saint of Cheb). The altarpiece can be shown to have been in the Church of St Wolfgang before 1870 and is last mentioned in a publication dating from 1915. Since 1901 it has been listed in the inventory of Cheb Museum.
According to a Baroque tin plaque from the year 1683, originally located beneath the feet of the Assumpta but no longer extant, the altarpiece was originally consecrated in 1520. In the Baroque period, an upper section was added to the altarpiece with a statue of St Valentine and other additions, and it survived in this form until the Second World War. During the war the statues were removed and hidden, and later exhibited separately in Cheb Museum. Eventually they were transferred to the newly established Gallery of Fine Arts in Cheb in 1962.
Description and context
The altarpiece with movable wings (centre 187 x 155 cm, wings 187 x 79 cm), shows the scene of the Virgin Mary taken up into heaven and glorified (the Assumpta), depicted between two bishops. On her right is evidently St Wolfgang (patron saint of the church), on the left St Nicholas (patron saint of Cheb). The same arrangement of the figures, identified by their attributes, was to be seen on an Early Baroque altar painting from Seeberg castle church, as described by Karl Siegl in 1915. The painting was handed over to the Cheb District National Committee in 1971 and is now missing.
The relief sculptures of the bishops are holding a book and do not have attributes. According to Turnwald, an upper section was added to the altarpiece in 1683 and polychrome was applied to the sculptures. This was removed during later restorations in 1970, 1972, and 2005. Also dating from 1683 is the wooden plaque on the altarpiece corpus, on which the bishops are designated as St Burkhard (patron saint of Würzburg), St Erhard (patron saint of Regensburg), and St Valentine. The plaque, today displayed with the altarpiece, also gives the date the work was created (1520).