Třeboň Altarpiece

The Třeboň or Wittingau Altarpiece is a now dismantled retable altarpiece commissioned for the Augustinian Canons church of St. Aegidius, Trebon. It was completed c 1380-1390 by the unidentified Bohemian painter known by the notname Master of the Třeboň Altarpiece or Master of Wittingau; one of the most important gothic artists of the international style.

The altarpiece depicts events around the death and resurrection of Christ. It was influenced by the Devotio Moderna religious movement, emphasising contemplation, meditation and a focus on the inner life. The Třeboň Altarpiece is regarded for its intense use of colour and light, and its loose brushwork and elegant, rhythmical forms.

At some point the work was broken up, with two surviving panels in the National Gallery, Prague, and a third in the Alsová Jihoceská Galeria, Hluboká nad Vltavou, Czech Republic. The extant panels are The Agony in the Garden, Entombment and the Resurrection. The reverse of the Agony shows languid, touching, "rosy-cheeked" representations of Saints Catherine, Mary Magdalene and Margaret.

It is not known how many panels made up the original altarpiece, or how they were arranged. A total five is considered the most likely number, which would allow for four wings and a larger center piece.

It is thought the work consisted of five panels; a main (now lost) crucifixion and two pairs of wings, of which three survive. The outer panels, visible when the wings were folded, showed groupings of saints and apostles.

Each extant panel is dominated by a single horizontal line in which Christ is centrally positioned. Examination of the underdrawings show that the artist frequently deviated from his preliminary sketches, an indication of the looseness and freshness of his overall approach. The images are flat as they are completed before the advent of perspective. They are the more remarkable for the rich and precisely rendered small details, and use of glazes, given that they were completed before the development of oil painting some 30 years later. According to art historian Robert Suckale, "never before have weapons appeared sharper or shields more spiked." The painting is quintessentially Gothic and does not evidence any Italian influence. Rather it can be within the tradition of Bohemian painting, or possibly Franco-Flemish art. Its innovative use of light may be traced to the techniques of the Master Theoderic, while the positioning of the knight below Christ in the Resurrection references the Christ child in the c 1350 Italian-Byzantium icon, the Eichhorn Madonna.

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