Scene from the Legend of a Bishop Saint c. 1480

This panel painting, made by an anonymous artist, probably in Germany, shows a miraculous rescue at sea. Painted with tempera on wood, the relatively small scale is typical for devotional images of the period. What interests me most is the evident labor involved in this panel. The gesso ground had to be prepared, the pigments carefully mixed and applied in layers to build up color and form. The artist seems to have been skilled in this process, rendering fine details like the bishop’s patterned robe. Yet, the figures are somewhat flat and lack individual character. This may reflect workshop practices, where different hands contributed to various parts of the composition. The repeated patterns adorning the ship’s deck suggest the use of stencils, a common labor-saving device. Despite its apparent naivete, this panel embodies a complex relationship between artistic skill, workshop production, and the economics of religious art in the late medieval period. Considering these aspects allows us to appreciate not just the image, but the making of the image, in its full historical context.