As part of a lecture of the Society for Local History and Preservation of Monuments Dr. Georg Heilingsetzer and Dr. Lothar Schultes will take you on a journey to the altar of the Master of Mondsee!
Dr. Heilingsetzer describes the Mondsee monastery as an intellectual center at the end of the 15th century, which flourished economically on the basis of the “Melker Reform”. A lively activity in construction began, and numerous artists settled in Mondsee. Abbot Benedikt Eck not only commissioned Michael Pacher to create the high altar in St. Wolfgang, but probably also the anonymous “Master of Mondsee” with an altar in the collegiate church. Although the individual pieces of the altar were scattered all over the land after the dissolution of the monastery in 1791, substantial parts were preserved. This year the Belvedere presented an exhibition about the Master of Mondsee, in which all the surviving panel paintings were reunited for the first time. Within the context of preparatory research, it was possible to re-evaluate the art-historical position of this master and to reinterpret the contents of the paintings. The most surprising result was the discovery of the underlying sketches, in which the painter proved to be one of the greatest drawers of the Late Gothic period. Dr. Schultes will present these new discoveries with impressive high-resolution photographs of the panels and their sketches.
