Our Lady Enthroned with Jesus and Saints

The panel was commissioned by the prince bishop Johannes Hinderbach (1418-1486), depicted below wearing his mitre and cloaked in a gem-studded cope, kneeling next to his chaplain, the canon Johann Ortwein. With this image, Hinderbach expresses the centrality of the cult of Mary in his spirituality and the close emotional bond with Saint John the Baptist, his protector, to whom he assigns the task of presenting the Child Jesus to the observer. With the presence of Saints Peter and Paul he reiterates his fidelity to the Church and the invitation to his successors to follow his example. Saint Jerome, the protector of Humanists, signifies his passion for the study of the ancient scripts.
The panel’s author has been dubitatively identified as being Michael Tanner, originally from Tittmoning, a town of the diocese of Salzburg, documented being in Trento during Bishop Hinderbach’s episcopate.