TREASURE:
Tilman Riemenschneider (1460 – 1531)
Saint Peter, Saint Paul, 1505-1506
linden wood
26-448-1, 26-447-1

One of the masters of the German Renaissance, Tilman Riemenschneider is Germany's greatest sculptor. While some of Riemenschneider’s sculptures were carved in stone, most of his work was done in wood.

Riemenschneider lived and worked in the German city of Würzburg, and many of his works are in a church in a small community near Würzburg, Wernfeld on the Main. Riemenschneider’s altarpiece for this church is considered his masterpiece.

The two pieces in the Reading Public Museum are especially rare because they are, in fact, a matched set: one of Saint Peter and one of Saint Paul. As with all the Renaissance, the subject of the work is religious. Originally these sculptures were painted in what is called “polychrome.” Unfortunately, like many early pieces, the polychrome paint is now completely gone. The color served to soften the sharply defined carving.

The greatness of early Renaissance artists and sculptors was that they were able to make carved human figures realistic. Still, the reality needs to be seen in light of historical development. The two figures are slim in proportion with narrow and sloping shoulders. They have large heads that appear to be even larger because of a profusion of curly hair. The cheekbones are exaggerated, the hands are long and rather thin, and the fingers are long and delicately formed.

The busts were discovered in 1863 in the sacristy of the parish church among discarded untensils formerly used in the church in Wernfeld on the Main. The busts came into the collections of Privy Counsellor Dr. Schäfer; later of the painter, Maria Schäfer in Darmstadt; and eventually were purchased by Gustav Oberlaender, who donated them to the Reading Public Museum.

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TREASURE:
Tintoretto (Jocobo Robusti) (1518 – 1594)
The Raising of Lazarus, 1556-57
oil on canvas
Loan, Jesuit Center

The Raising of Lazarus by Tintoretto has been loaned to the Museum for two primary reasons. First, since the renovation of the Museum in 1998, it now contains the state-of-the-art climate controls that are essential for the long term care of paintings. In addition, the Jesuit Center is interested in sharing their masterpiece with a wider audience, and at the Museum, the painting can not only be seen by visitors to the Museum, but it is also available to travel to other museums (as it did in 2000 to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.)

Tintoretto, a nickname given to Robusti by his father who was a dyer of cloth, is one of the great Italian High Renaissance painters of the Venetian school -- a student of Titian.

Tintoretto was won over to a new style of painting that emerged at the end of the late (or High) Renaissance that is now known as Mannerism, and El Greco, a student of Tintoretto, was also a Mannerist.

This painting is one of Tintoretto’s early works. As did most Renaissance artists, Tintoretto painted many Biblical scenes. The story of the Raising of Lazarus was a common Biblical scene painted by many Renaissance artists. Here the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha from the small village of Bethany (close to Jerusalem), asked Jesus to resurrect their brother. The scene depicted is the moment when Lazarus awakens.

In this painting, a calm, placid Jesus is on the left, the two sisters and a third witness on the front right are kneeling and adoringly fixated on Jesus, spellbound by His presence. Other witnesses are seen in the background covering their faces in awe. Lazarus here, unlike some Lazarus paintings by other artists, is extremely robust and even athletic in appearance. Some theologians say the Lazarus story is a foreshadowing of Christ’s own death and resurrection.