Death of the Virgin German Sculptor

The story of the death of the Virgin Mary, as told in the Apocrypha, had been depicted in the arts since the ninth century. It was only in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, however, that it became common to depict Mary on her deathbed surrounded by the apostles. The limewood relief from the early sixteenth century follows this type: the twelve apostles are portrayed at Mary’s bedside, watching over her, while reading and praying. The relief would seem to have been part of a carved winged altarpiece, whereby a close analogy can be made with the predella of the Coronation of the Virgin altarpiece in the Church of Saint James in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (Bavaria).