The Master of the Bützow Altarpiece was a German painter, active in the area around

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the state ...

around 1500 and influenced by the work of Wilm Dedeke. They are named for a major altarpiece painted for the church of

Bützow Bützow is a town in the district of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany, centered on Bützower See. History The town was first mentioned in 1171. From 1815 to 1918 Bützow was part of the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schw ...

, still held in the

ambulatory The ambulatory ( la, ambulatorium, ‘walking place’) is the covered passage around a cloister or the processional way around the east end of a cathedral or large church and behind the high altar. The first ambulatory was in France in the 11th ...

of the church.Hegner 2015 The Bützow altar is composed of two pairs of gates, the first fixed and sculpted, the second movable and painted. The second gates are painted with four saints on the outside eight scenes from the life of Saint Anne and the Virgin Mary on the inside. The altarpieces and

predella In art a predella (plural predelle) is the lowest part of an altarpiece, sometimes forming a platform or step, and the painting or sculpture along it, at the bottom of an altarpiece, sometimes with a single much larger main scene above, but oft ...

of the altar in the church of the Madonna of Singo in Sweden and the battens of the altar to Saint Anne in Trodens (now stored at the Museum of Bergen in Norway) are also attributed to this anonymous artist. The artist probably collaborated on the ''Altar of the Sacred Sacrement'', also known as the ''Fronleichnamaltar'' and now stored in Lübeck in the museum of Saint Anne, by painting people with rigid limbs and inexpressive faces on the movable gates and one of the scenes of the fixed gates. The doors of a built-in wardrobe are attributed to one of their assistants. The doors contain liturgical supplications datable to the last years of the 15th century and deriving from the church of Saint Catherine of Lübeck. The wardrobe is now stored in the local museum of Saint Anne.

References

Bibliography

* Busch, Harald, 1943: ''Meister des Nordens. Die altniederdeutsche Malerei 1450–1550'' (2nd revised edition), pp. 101f. Ellermann: Hamburg * Hegner, Kristina, 2015: ''Aus Mecklenburgs Kirchen und Klöstern. Der Mittelalterbestand des Staatlichen Museums Schwerin''. Petersberg 2015 * Lisch, Friedrich, 1862: ''Der Altar der Kirche zu Witzin'' in ''Jahrbücher des Vereins für Mecklenburgische Geschichte und Altertumskunde'' 27, 1862, pp. 226–227
online version
* Schöfbeck, Tilo, and Witt, Detlef, 2014: ''Die Stiftskirche zu Bützow''. Petersberg 15th-century German painters 16th-century German painters Butzow Altarpiece, Master of the {{Germany-painter-stub