Matthias Grünewald

Background

Matthias Grünewald was born in 1470 in Würzburg, Bayern, Germany.

Career

Grünewald first appeared in documents of about 1500 either in the town of Seligenstadt am Main or Aschaffenburg. His first securely dated work was the "Mocking of Christ" of 1503.

By about 1509 Grünewald had become court painter and later the leading art official (his title was supervisor or clerk of the works) to the elector of Mainz, the archbishop Uriel von Gemmingen.

About 1510 Grünewald received a commission from the Frankfurt merchant Jacob Heller to add two fixed wings to the altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin.

About 1515 Grünewald was entrusted with the largest and most important commission of his career. Guido Guersi, an Italian preceptor, asked Grünewald to paint a series of wings for the shrine of the high altar that had been carved in about 1505 by Niclaus Hagnower of Strasbourg. The subject matter of the wings of the Isenheim Altarpiece provided Grünewald’s genius with its fullest expression and was based largely on the text of the popular "Revelations" of St. Bridget of Sweden, written about 1370.

Another important clerical commission came from a canon in Aschaffenburg, Heinrich Reitzmann. In 1513 he had asked Grünewald to paint an altar for the Mariaschnee Chapel in the Church of Saints Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg. Grünewald painted this work in 1517-1519.

Sometime around 1516 Grünewald began working for Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg, archbishop of Mainz. In the Saint Erasmus and Saint Maurice, completed before 1525, the portrait of Albrecht as Saint Erasmus is based on Dürer's 1519 engraving, the so-called Little Cardinal. Grünewald remained in service to Cardinal Albrecht until 1526, and it has been suggested that he was dismissed because of his participation in the Peasant Rebellion of 1525. Around this time he moved to Frankfurt where he stayed in the home of Hans von Saarbrucken, a silk embroiderer.

In 1527 Grünewald moved to Halle where he worked as a hydraulic engineer for the city. He died on August 31, 1528, in Halle, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.

Achievements

• Matthias Grünewald was one of the greatest German artists of the sixteenth century. His work "The Isenheim Altar", finnished in 1516, is considered to be his masterpiece. Nonetheless, only about twenty-two individual paintings and approximately thirty-seven drawings have been attributed to him.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • The Entombment (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

    1515

  • Annunciation (detail)

    1515

  • Woman Looking Up

    1514

  • Annunciation and Resurrection

    1515

  • Mary with the Child and Young St. John

    1515

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

    1509

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

    1509

  • Visit of St. Anthony to St. Paul and Temptation of St. Anthony

    1515

  • St. Lucy (c.283-c.304)

    1511

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail from central part)

    1509

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail)

    1515

  • The Annunciation (detail)

    1515

  • The Crucifixion 3 (detail)

    1516

  • The Small Crucifixion

    1510

  • St. Elizabeth and a Saint Woman with Palm

    1511

  • Study of an Apostle

    1511

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

    1509

  • Calvary

    1508

  • St. Lawrence and St. Cyricus

    1511

  • Suffering Man (detail from The Temptation of St. Anthony)

    1515

  • A Glass Jug (detail from the Concert of Angels from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

    1516

  • Crucifixion Altarpiece (detail)

    1516

  • Coburg Panel

    1500

  • Upper Arm Study

    1514

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

    1509

  • Crucifixion

    1502

  • Saint Agnes of Rome (Coburg Panel)

    1500

  • Woman with Open Robe

    1514

  • Praying Woman

    1514

  • Nativity (detail from the cental right Crucifixion panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

    1515

  • Benefactor with Bird Cage

  • An Apostle from the Transfiguration

    1511

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail)

    1515

  • The Isenheim Altarpiece

    1516

  • St. Anthony Visiting St .Paul the Hermit in the Desert (detail)

    1515

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail)

    1516

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail)

    1516

  • The Crucifixion (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

    1515

  • Virgin and Child

    1519

  • Nativity (detail from the cental right Crucifixion panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • The Devil Attacking the Window (detail from St. Anthony the Hermit from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Virgin and Mary Magdalen at the foot of the Cross (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Altarpiece of Our Lady of the Snows

  • The Annunciation (left wing of the Isenheim Altar)

  • St. Maurice (detail from The Meeting of St. Erasmus and St. Maurice)

  • St. Catherine

  • The first view of the altar: St. Sebastian (left), The Crucifixion (central), St. Anthony (right), Entombment (bottom)

  • Kneeling King with Two Angels

  • The Stuppach Madonna

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (right wing of the Isenheim Altar)

  • Virgin of the Annunciation

  • Drapery Study

  • The Annunciation; Virgin and Child with Angels; The Resurrection (Second view with the open wings)

  • Heller Altarpiece

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • Lamentation of Christ

  • Concert of Angels (detail from the cental left Crucifixion panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • John the Apostle (Half Length Portrait of a Man with a Pinfeather Looking Up)

  • The Concert of Angels (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • St. John in the Forest

  • Head of a Young Woman

  • Head of an Old Man

  • Head of a Shouting Man

  • Smiling Woman

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • Forearm Study

  • Unfinished Study

  • Complaining Pharisee

  • Saints Erasmus and Mauritius

  • Detail from The Concert of Angels

  • Man Looking Up

  • The Resurrection of Christ (right wing of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Isenheim Altarpiece (third view)

  • St. Anthony Visiting St. Paul the Hermit in the Desert (detail)

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • Soldiers Guarding Christ's Tomb at the Resurrection (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • The Prophet Isaiah (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Virgin of the Annunciation

  • Entombment (detail from The bottom of The first view of the Isenheim Altar)

  • The Crucifixion

  • Annunciation to the Shepherds (detail from the Annunciation from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • St. Sebastian

  • Archangel Gabriel (detail from the Annunciation from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • The Entombment (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Nativity and Concert of Angels from the Isenheim Altarpiece (central panel)

  • Christ Carrying the Cross

  • Lamentation of Christ (detail)

  • Moses

  • Last Supper (Coburg Panel)

  • The Temptation of St. Anthony (detail)

  • The Resurrection of Christ (detail from the right wing of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Demons Armed with Sticks (detail from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • An Apostle from the Transfiguration

  • St. Dorothy with the Basket of Flowers

  • Head of a Shouting Man

  • Portrait of Guido Guersi

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • St. John the Baptist (detail from the Annunciation from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Weeping Woman

  • The second view of the altar. St Anthony Visiting St Paul the Hermit in the Desert (left), The Temptation of St. Anthony (right). Central part are carved figures of St. August, St. Anthony, St. Jerome; bottom part Jesus with 12 Apostles.

  • The Mocking of Christ

  • St. Anthony Visiting St. Paul the Hermit in the Desert (left wing of the Isenheim Altar)

  • The Virgin Illuminated (detail from the Concert of Angels from the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • The Triple Face

  • Mary with the Sun below her Feet

  • Christ on the Cross (detail from the central Crucifixion panel of the Isenheim Altarpiece)

  • Heller Altarpiece (detail)

  • St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Connections

In 1512 he settled in nearby Frankfurt Grünewald bought a house and married Anna Neithardt, a converted Jew, then probably aged 18. The couple had a son Endres Neithart.

The marriage was not happy and in 1523 she would be institutionalised with what is variously described as mental illness and demonic possession. Grünewald occasionally added his wife’s surname, Neithardt, to his own, thereby accounting for several documentary references to him as Mathis Neithardt or Mathis Gothardt Neithardt.

Spouse:

Anna Neithart

Son:

Endres Neithart

employer:

Uriel Gemmingen

References

• Matthias Grünewald.
• Matthias Grünewald.
• Matthias Grünewald: 110+ Renaissance Paintings
• Matthias Grünewald: The Drawings
• Matthias Grünewald