Master of the Laufen Legend of Saint George
Holy Roman Empire · Late Gothic
The story
Laufen is a small town on the Salzach river, today on the German side of the border with Austria, and for centuries it belonged to the archbishops of Salzburg. Its parish house keeps panels from two former altar wings telling the legend of Saint George, painted in Salzburg around 1460. In one of them the saint is handed a cup of poison, one of the ordeals the legend says he survived. Nobody knows who painted the cycle, so art historians named the painter after it.
The Belvedere in Vienna attributes to the same hand a Flagellation of Christ, dated around 1460 and painted on fir. It hangs among the medieval panels shown in the former palace stables of the Lower Belvedere.
