Saint Werner

This small panel shows St Werner engrossed in a book. He is leaning on a richly decorated crosier, which is elegantly draped by part of his green cloak with a yellow lining and red border. On the head of his crosier is a golden lunette set with a relief of the Virgin Mary holding the Child. The cloak is fastened with a golden brooch. In the background is a stone wall, behind which is a garden with overgrowth and an earthen rampart, under a clear blue sky. The colours are bright and radiant. Werner was the patron saint of the family of Gottfried Werner, Count of Zimmern in what is nowadays Hessen. The count commissioned a large altarpiece for a church in Meβkirch, of which this panel formed one of the wings. The altarpiece was made, along with ten side altars, by the Master of Meβkirch, an anonymous artist who is named after this work.