Herrenberg Altarpiece

It is recorded as the work of Jerg Ratgeb. Materials recorded for it are color, panel, mixed technique and fir panel. The record gives 1519 as its date of establishment or first appearance. Recorded genres are religious art. It is recorded in the collection of Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

• Illustration — Copy of the altarpiece in the collegiate church in Herrenberg – with wings folded The altarpiece bears a date of 1519. The eight panel images were painted by artist, Jerg Ratgeb (c. 1480–1526) who was executed during the German Peasants' War. The carved shrine, the front of the predella and the decorated carvings above the altarpiece have been lost. Ratgeb's idiosyncratic and expressive style of painting was, for a long time, little appreciated and it has only recently been appropriately recognized. The altarpiece in Herrenberg was only in place for a relatively short time. After the Reformation was introduced to the town in 1534, the first Lutheran pastor in Herrenberg had it dismantled in 1537. In 1548, at the time of the Augsburg Interim, Spanish troops had the altar rebuilt. After 1552, it was simply suspended from the ceiling for a few centuries. In 1891, the town council sold the altarpiece to the "State Collection of National Antiquities" in Stuttgart "in view of its, in places, unattractive images". The surviving elements have been in the Stuttgart State Gallery since 1924. A copy may be seen in the collegiate church in Herrenberg. The Herrenbilder Altar is a winged altarpiece, the front of which has two outer wings (A) that can be opened out to the left and right and two inner wings (I) that can also be opened. The four surviving are panels in the same format, painted on both sides (a, b) and thus there are eight panels in toto. • Illustration — The Last Supper, first opening, left, outside (panel A li b) • Illustration — The Flagellation of Christ, first opening, left, inside (panel I li a) • Illustration — The Resurrection of Christ, first opening, right, outside (panel A re b)