Saint Ambrose

Mondsee Abbey had been copying books since around 780, and in the 1490s the painter gave Saint Ambrose, the 4th-century bishop of Milan, a study that belongs to that world. A tall cupboard is stacked with bound volumes, with glass flasks and an hourglass on the top shelf. Ambrose stands at a slanted desk in a red mitre, one gloved hand resting on the page, an inkpot and pen beside a red-bound book, while banderoles above his shoulder spell out his name. This was the outer face of a small wing on the base of the high altar, and the museum records that it was sawn away from the Flight into Egypt on the other side. When the abbey was dissolved in 1791, its manuscripts went to the court library in Vienna and this panel to the diocesan administration in Linz.