Kefermarkt Altarpiece

Geschichte

The Kefermarkt Altarpiece is an altarpiece made between 1490 and 1497 by an unidentified artist sometimes referred to as the Master of the Kefermarkt Altarpiece. The altarpiece is considered one of the main works of late Gothic art in the German-speaking part of Europe. The altar is today a well visited tourist attraction in Kefermarkt close to Freistadt in Austria. It is considered one of the three great altarpieces from the late 15th century of the German sprachraum together with the Pacher Altarpiece in St. Wolfgang im Salzkammergut and the Veit Stoss altarpiece in Kraków . It is the main altarpiece of Church of St. Wolfgang in Kefermarkt.HistoryCommissionThe lord of a nearby castle, Christoph von Zellking, commissioned the building of a new church for Kefermarkt between 1470 and 1476. In his last will and testament from 1490 he provided the money to pay for an altarpiece dedicated to Saint Wolfgang. The altarpiece had certainly by that time already been commissioned, and work on it may already have been started. In the following year, Christoph von Zellking died. A receipt from 1497 (later lost) documented the final payment for the altarpiece, indicating that the retable may have been installed in the church that year.To accommodate the new altarpiece, the choir of the church had to be rebuilt in 1491. The presentation of the altarpiece in the church has been changed throughout the centuries, and it is today in the position in which it was placed in 1684. The predella of the altarpiece has been lost, as well as the backside of the altarpiece.