Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

The artist known as the Master of the Holy Kinship was one of the most prominent artists working in Cologne around 1500. He supervised a large workshop that produced paintings and altarpieces for the local nobility and religious institutions in the region. Strongly influenced by the art of neighboring Flanders, the master’s work is characterized by vivid colors, a meticulous attention to detail, dense compositions, and steep perspective. Originally, these two panels were the inner wings of a triptych believed to have been produced for the Church of St. Martinus in Richterich, a small town near Aachen. They would have been displayed only on holy days, when the altarpiece was opened. The altarpiece, which is reconstructed below, was dismantled in the nineteenth century.

It was produced at a time when northern European artists were beginning to transition from the late Gothic style seen in this work to the more naturalistic aesthetic then evolving in Italy. In addition to contacts with Italy, artists in Cologne encountered a variety of aesthetic traditions because the city, located on the Rhine River, was a center of international trade. Cologne was also home to a cosmopolitan and diverse population, including the oldest Jewish community north of the Alps. This diversity is also suggested by the depiction of Balthazar, one of the three magi, as an African. The portrayal became a convention in northern European art in the fifteenth century, reflecting contact between Europeans and Africans as a result of trade, diplomacy, and religious pilgrimage.