Attributed to the Master of Laufen

These panels are attributed to a painter from the Salzburg region whose name is lost. Art historians call him the Master of Laufen, after a Crucifixion with three figures from the parish house of Laufen, a small town on the Salzach river. He was active from about 1435 until after 1464, and in that Crucifixion the mourners show their grief openly, in the heavy, earthy realism of mid-15th-century painting.

The Belvedere holds panels given to him, dated around 1445 to 1450. Two are painted on fir and match in size, a Crucifixion and a Christ Bearing the Cross, and another shows the apostles Peter, Paul, James the Less and Simon. He probably worked alongside another anonymous painter, the Master of the Hallein Altarpiece.