St. Barbara

In December 1953 Vienna was still divided among four occupying powers, and the Belvedere opened a new museum of medieval Austrian art in its Orangery. This panel was in it from the start. It had come over that year from the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which acquired it in 1933. Before that it had been in a private collection in Innsbruck and on the art market in Merano. The Belvedere catalogues it as a work of Michael Pacher's workshop, painted around 1480 to 1490, which leaves open how much of it, if anything, is by the master's own hand. Barbara is shown half-length, crowned, her long reddish hair falling over a red dress and a green cloak, and her heavy-lidded eyes are lowered towards the white tower she holds. Today she hangs in the Palace Stables, part of the same palace complex.