Saint Augustine

On the closed wings at the base of the Mondsee altar, this panel was paired with Saint Ambrose, the bishop of Milan who baptised Augustine at Easter in 387. Augustine had come to Milan as a young teacher of rhetoric and later became bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Here he sits on a bench draped with patterned cloth, a heavy red cope over pale green robes and a white mitre banded in gold. He turns a page of the book in his lap and raises his other hand, while a ribbon unfurling above him carries his name. On the table at his side lie closed books and glass flasks. Low down, at the foot of the bench, a small child's face in a red collar peers out.