Saint Adalbert and Saint Procopius
ca. 1490–1500
Medium
Oil on spruce, gold ground
Dimensions
Painted surface, including black border, 27 1/8 x 17 in. (68.9 x 43.2 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of William Rosenwald, 1944
Accession Number
44.147.1
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the late 15th century, anonymous *Master of Eggenburg*named after an altarpiece in Lower Austria—created this luminous panel painting, *Saint Adalbert and Saint Procopius (ca. 1490–1500). Depicting two revered Central European saints, the work captures Adalbert, the Bohemian bishop and missionary martyred in 997 while evangelizing the Prussians and Procopius, 11th-century Czech hermit and abbot of Sázava. These holy men, patrons of the region, stand frontally against a shimmering gold ground, their solemn gazes and richly brocaded robes evoking devotion in a time when such images adorned ch...