The many characteristic features of the great altarpiece in the church of St Mary in Cracow (the powerful and craggy features of the Apostles, the full oval of the Virgin's delicate face, the exuberant curls of the voluminous beards and hair) displayed as well in the works Stoss carried out after returning from Cracow to Nuremberg in 1496. There he worked in sandstone to produce the three scenes of the St Sebaldus Passion. But he carved mainly in limewood, which he coated either with an ultra-refined polychromy, as in the Annunciation hanging in the choir of the St Lorenzkirche, or, preferring to bring out the material itself, with faint coloured highlights.
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