The Rogendorf Altarpiece

Between 1480 and 1494 a new nave was built for the pilgrimage church of Heiligenblut am Jauerling, in Lower Austria. The lords of Rogendorf from nearby Pöggstall helped pay for it. This altarpiece was made for the same building around 1490 by an unnamed Lower Austrian workshop. The family's coat of arms is still there, painted in the curved spandrels at both ends of the predella. In the shrine, gilded carved figures of the crowned Virgin and Child stand between Saint Andrew and Saint Stephen, under a canopy of Gothic tracery. The open wings show scenes from the life of the Virgin on gold ground, among them the Nativity. The altarpiece stayed at Heiligenblut until 1874, when Archduke Franz Karl, the emperor's father, passed it to the imperial collection at Ambras Castle. It has been on loan to the Belvedere since 1995.