The Evangelists John and Mark

Who painted this small panel, under 30 centimetres tall, is still an open question. It was long placed in the circle of the Master of the Friedrich Altarpiece, an anonymous painter working in Austria in the 1440s. Today the Belvedere catalogues it, with a question mark, as the work of a Netherlandish painter of around 1430, the decade in which Jan van Eyck was working in Bruges. Two evangelists stand on gold ground with their symbols. The young, curly-haired John has his eagle overhead, carrying a scroll with his name. The bearded Mark has a lion curled on a red book at his feet. The museum also holds its pendant, showing Matthew and Luke. Before the panel reached Vienna it belonged to the Este family's collections at the Catajo castle near Padua, and later to the Viennese medallist Joseph Daniel Böhm.