Disputation of Saint Stephen

The Acts of the Apostles tells how Stephen, one of seven men chosen to serve the first Christian community in Jerusalem, argued so well that his opponents could not answer him. A painter in Tyrol, working around 1450 to 1460, dressed that debate in the fashions of his own day. The young saint wears a deacon's robe of red and gold brocade and points at a small green book. The man seated before him wears a tall mitre, the headdress painters of the time often gave to the Jewish high priest, and ticks off his arguments on his fingers. Behind Stephen, a hand already rests on his shoulder. In the same chapter his opponents seize him and bring him before the council, and the story ends with his stoning. The panel has been on long-term loan to the Belvedere from the McCarthy Collection in Hong Kong since 2015.