Belvedere 1/2004
LOTHAR SCHULTES - The Gothik Parish Church of Schönbach and its Furniture
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- which is unfortunately also the case for the far more im
portant locality of Passau. The extant documents do howe-
ver show that artists from Passau at this period, as also later
in the Baroque, supplied works not only to what is now Up
per Austria, but as far as the Wachau and the Waldviertel.
For instance, the high altar of the abbey church in St. Florian,
which was installed in 1468, and from which two sculptures
possibly survive, was the work of Michael Golsner of Pas
sau. 45 In 1488 Martin Kriechbaum of Passau received pay-
ments from Waldhausen Abbey, and in 1500 he worked for
the Abbey of Zwettl, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of Schön
bach.
At the time when the side-altars there were probably pro-
duced, Kriechbaum had already died, however, and his sons
continued his Studio. 46 Their main competitors were Rueland
Frueauf the Younger, who evidently worked only as a pain-
ter, and Wolf Huber, who was in the employ of a bishop and
whose altar depicting St Anne in Feldkirch also contains
sculptures, in particular a group of several figures represen-
ting the extended family of the Virgin. 47 This does show do
se stylistic affinities with the group depicting St Anne, the
Virgin and Child in Schönbach, but evidently reveals the
hand of another sculptor. In the Kalendarium ecclesiasticum
of 1679, the Jesuit Father Gabriel Bucelin relates that the
altar in Feldkirch was the work of three brothers, a carpenter,
a sculptor and a painter. It therefore seemed reasonable to
identify the sculptor Jörg Huber, who is mentioned in Passau
in 1510, with one of the brothers referred to.
A sculptor of the same name, who had come from Passau,
became a Citizen of Cracow in 1496; his presence there is
attested until 1509 and he has left his signature on the bal-
dachin of the tomb of King Casimir Jagiello, a major work by
Veit Stoss. He was primarily a sculptor in marble, but sculp
tures in wood have also been attributed to him. 48 Like the
much more famous Wolf Huber, he may have come origi-
nally from Feldkirch in the Vorarlberg, for the inscription
"IOKIG HVEbEK VON V” can probably only be interpreted
as "Jorig (Jörg) Hueber von V(eldkürch) 49 ". But the Connec
tions do not stop here, for there is no stylistic link between
Jörg's work in Cracow and the sculptures in the altar in Feld
kirch. These could, at most, be works by a younger relative
of the same name, perhaps a son, which would also accord
well with the mention of a Jörg Huber in Passau as late as
1545 - admittedly without an indication of his trade. 50
If the altar in Feldkirch was in fact the work of three brot
hers, as the Baroque source cited above States, Wolf and Jörg
the Younger may therefore have been sons or nephews of
the Jörg Huber the Eider who worked in Cracow - a new as-
sociation which certainly deserves consideration.
The question is further complicated, however, by the fact
that the sculptures in the two side-altars in Schönbach are,
as already mentioned, the work not of the sculptor who
produced the altar in Feldkirch, but of a sculptor who was si-
milarly oriented stylistically, but otherwise was entirely in
dependent. The Huber studio in Passau can therefore be sup-
posed to have been a very productive enterprise with a ränge
of staff. This fits with the report, cited by Winzinger, that
Wolf Huber worked "with many journeymen and apprenti-
ces".
A glance at the painting in the Schönbach altar depicting the
Virgin confirms these Connections. The depictions, which al
ready show Renaissance characteristics, represent four en-
throned female saints: Dorothy, bringing a basket of flowers
to the naked infant Jesus, Apollonia with a pair of pincers,
Helena with the True Cross and St Ottilia, dressed as a nun
(fig. 14). They all show so great an affinity with Wolf Hu-
ber's works that they can be attributed, if not to the master
himself, then to his immediate associates. Consequently, the
re are very strong arguments for attributing the two side-
altars in Schönbach to the Huber studio in Passau. The fact
that Wolf Huber worked repeatedly in Austria is evidenced,
after all, not just by the landscape studies which he produced
in Mondsee, Traunkirchen, Linz, Grein, Aggstein and Krems,
but also by his work for Vienna. 51
This attribution would also accord with the high artistic
quality of the two winged altars, which, admittedly, it has
only been possible to really evaluate fully since the recent
restoration was completed. Although many questions must
remain unresolved, they should now at last attract the at
tention in Austrian art history which they deserve.
Footnotes
1 - Alois Plesser and Hans Tietze, Die Denkmale des politischen Bezirkes
Pöggstall, Vienna 1910, p. 218; Otto Demus, Die Werkstätten des Bun
desdenkmalamtes, in: Österreichische Zeitschrift für Kunst und Denkmal
pflege XV, 1961, p. 29, 44 f., PI. 41 f., 66; Josef Zykan, Die Plastik, in:
Fritz Dworschak / Harry Kühnei, Die Gotik in Niederösterreich, Vienna
1963, p. 139, colour plate 107; Franz Eppel, Das Waldviertel, Salzburg 3
1964, p. 207; Susanne und Johann Kronbichier, Schönbach. Pfarrkirche
Maria Rast, Schönbach 1983, p. 22, colour pl. p. 17; Wilhelm Zotti,
Kirchliche Kunst in Niederösterreich. Diözese St Pölten, Volume 2, Pfarr-
und Filialkirchen nördlich der Donau, St Pölten-Vienna 1986, p. 345 f;
Dehio-Handbuch Niederösterreich nördlich der Donau, Vienna 1990, p.
1044.
2 - Petr Pavelec, St Veits-Kirche in Cesky Krumlov. Kunsthistorischer Be
gleiter, Ceske Budejovice 1999; Jiri Kuthan, Österreich, Salzburg Bayern
und Südböhmen - Zu den Beziehungen der Baukunst in der Zeit der
Spätgotik, in: Gotik Schätze Oberösterreich. Symposion im Linzer Schloß
(Gesellschaft für Landeskunde, volume 20 in a series of monographs),
Linz 2003, p. 16 ff., pl. 5, 7, 8 (with the eariier bibliography).
3 - Günter Brucher, Gotische Baukunst in Österreich, Salzburg/Vienna
1990, p. 217, pl. 171.
4 - Alois Plessner / Hans Tietze 1910, as note 1, p. 211, Fig. 231 f;
Petr Pavelec, as note 2, colour jacket Illustration.
