Master of St. Lawrence
Basel, ca. 1480
Linden wood, carved, painted
H 142 cm
Inv. 1910.117.
This statue of Lawrence as a youthful deacon is the only Late Gothic wood carving from a Basel workshop still in existence, as far as we know. This alone is an indication of the magnitude of the losses sustained by the once lavishly appointed churches of Basel as a result of the Reformation. The scratches and knocks on the saint’s face make the sculpture itself a document of the Iconoclasm of 1529. The sculpture’s original location is thought to have been the Chapel of St. Andrew, which was demolished in 1792. The figure is the most important work of the eponymous master of Basel and his workshop, to which six additional figures of saints have been attributed.
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