page_title: Stefan Lochner
section_title: Other formats
hierarchical_section_title: Stefan Lochner / Work / Other formats
caption_attribution_description: English: Virgin adoring the infant Christ, attributed to a follower of Stefan Lochner. Paper, 1445. British Museum.
context_page_description: Stefan Lochner was a German painter working in the late "soft style" of the International Gothic. His paintings combine that era's tendency toward long flowing lines and brilliant colours with the realism, virtuoso surface textures and innovative iconography of the early Northern Renaissance. Based in Cologne, a commercial and artistic hub of northern Europe, Lochner was one of the most important German painters before Albrecht Dürer. Extant works include single-panel oil paintings, devotional polyptychs and illuminated manuscripts, which often feature fanciful and blue-winged angels. Today some thirty-seven individual panels are attributed to him with confidence.
  Less is known of his life. Art historians associating the Dombild Master with the historical Stefan Lochner believe he was born in Meersburg in south-west Germany around 1410, and that he spent some of his apprenticeship in the Low Countries. Records further indicate that his career developed quickly but was cut short by an early death. We know that he was commissioned around 1442 by the Cologne council to provide decorations for the visit of Emperor Frederick III, a major occasion for the city.
context_section_description: There are extant liturgical vestments containing embroidered figures, including that of St. Barbara, in Lochner's style and with similar facial types. This has led to some speculation whether Lochner provided the models. In addition, a number of contemporary stained glass panels are similar in style, and there has been debate whether he might have been responsible for church murals; the over-life-size figures of the Dombild and Virgin with the Violet indicate his ability to work on a monumental scale.
  Two drawings on paper in the British Museum and the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts were at times thought to be studies for the Munich Nativity. The lines of the folds in the garments closely match those of the painting, although the technical ability does not. The Paris drawing has blotches of paint indicating that it was a study piece for workshop members. The London piece is superior, but its lines are more rigid, lacking Lochner's fluidity, and so its attribution has been relegated to a draughtsman closely associated with Lochner.
caption: Follower or workshop of Stefan Locher, Virgin adoring the infant Christ, pen and black ink on paper. British Museum, 1445
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