ALTDORFER, Albrecht
(b. ca. 1480, Regensburg, d. 1538, Regensburg)

Diptych

1507
Linden panel, 24 x 21 cm (each panel)
Staatliche Museen, Berlin

The small diptych represents the Stigmatisation of St Francis (left panel) and the Penitence of St Jerome (right panel). In the diptych the two saints are seen close-up, in contrast with the infinite space of their landscape settings.

Altdorfer belongs to a small group of German artists for whom landscape assumed great importance, both for helping to set the emotional tone of a narrative scene, and for its own sake.