Saint John - Saalfeld School. Hans Gottwald von Lohr.

Saint John the Evangelist in polychrome and gilt limewood. The saint is clad in a gilt mantle with blue lining, with broken folds characteristic of late Gothic German sculpture, particularly the workshops of Thuringia and Franconia. The tunic, visible at the rounded neckline and at the bottom of the sculpture, falls in relatively simple vertical, tubular folds, creating a visual supporting column that contrasts with the mantle, treated with great volumetric complexity, typical of the “broken folds” (Knitterfalten) or “angular folds” used in the Saalfeld school. An old collector’s label mentions an attribution to Valentin Lendenstreich, the Master of the Neusitz Altarpiece. The relative stiffness of certain sections, combined with the depth of the carving, suggests more strongly the hand of Hans Gottwald von Lohr and his synthesis between Thuringian fluidity and the structural rigour inherited from the Würzburg school than the style of Valentin Lendenstreich.

The face presents the characteristic typology of Saint John the Evangelist: a youthful, beardless physiognomy, marked by a sorrowful gravity. The features are strongly defined, in a quest for expressiveness typical of Thuringian sculpture around 1500–1510, with almond-shaped eyes and slightly protruding eyeballs, surmounted by heavy half-closed eyelids. The hair, treated with great virtuosity, forms a dense sculptural mass framing the face and revealing a high forehead. It unfolds in thick undulating locks falling heavily onto the nape of the neck, worked with chisel and gouge, with deep undercutting to generate intense contrasts of light and shadow. This sculpture achieves a synthesis between the works of Tilman Riemenschneider and those of Valentin Lendenstreich, supporting the attribution to Hans Gottwald von Lohr, who was Riemenschneider’s pupil before joining the Saalfeld school and taking over its direction on the death of Valentin Lendenstreich. This sculpture once formed part of a larger ensemble, more specifically an altarpiece with three-quarter-round figures. Such altarpieces are known in Thuringia in the area around Saalfeld, such as the retables of Erfurt or Rudolstadt, both attributed to the hand of Hans Gottwald von Lohr.
References consulted:
· Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler Thüringens: Herzogthum Sachsen-Meiningen: Kreis Saalfeld, Georg Voss & Paul Lehfeldt, Jena, 1892.
· Meisterwerke der Kunst aus Sachsen u. Thüringen, Oskar Doering, Magdeburg, 1905.