HERLIN, Friedrich
(b. 1430, Rothenburg, d. ca. 1500, Nördlingen)

St George and St Sebastian

1475-80
Oil on panel, 75 x 34 cm (each)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

These fragmentary panels showing the standing figures of Sts George and Sebastian. A indicated by the fragments of arches below, the saints must originally have belonged to the top half of a panel consisting four figures, which probably formed the right wing of a folding triptych. Presumably a complementary arrangement was present on the lost left wing. The original eight standing figures (four at left, four at right) was probably located on the wing exteriors, visible in the closed state of the triptych.

Formerly attributed to Friedrich Herlin, the panels now are thought were executed by an anonymous painter in the circle of Friedrich Herlin. The facial types in the panels show strong similarity to those of Herlin and his workshop. The long cylindrical noses with pinched nostrils, heavy lidded eyes, reddened cheeks, and strong gray shadows are typical, as is the prominent triangular shadow at the temple of the Sebastian figure. Similar faces appear throughout the Nördlingen and Rothenburg high altarpieces of 1462 and 1466, as well as in Herlin's 1468 Genger Epitaph, which also shows comparable architectural forms.