(1444–1523 Augsburg)
James the Major Preaching against the Magician Hermogenes, oil on panel, 44 x 37 cm, framed,

Literature: Bernd Konrad/Alfred Stange: Die Deutschen Tafelbilder vor Dürer, Kritisches Verzeichnis mit Abbildungen und Ergänzungen, Kat. no. 726 (as Thoman Burgkmair); Alfred Stange: Kritisches Verzeichnis der deutschen Tafelbilder vor Dürer, vol. II, Munich 1970, no. 726 (as Thoman Burgkmair); Alfred Stange: Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, Munich 1955, vol. VIII, p. 50 (as Thoman Burgkmaier); Ernst Buchner: review of Thieme/Becker: “Meister mit Notnamen und Monogrammisten” (Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, vol. 37), in: Zeitschrift für Kunst, 4.1950, pp. 308–22, p. 310: here Buchner was the first to classify our painting as a work by Thoman Burgkmair, whom he identified in his review with the Master of the Augsburg Legend of St. Benedict; exh. cat. Gemälde alter Meister aus Berliner Privatbesitz, Akademie der Künste, Berlin 1925, no. 242 (as “Master of Lake Constance”). Thoman Burgkmair ranks among the most significant and influential masters of late Gothic art (comp. Buchner: Die Augsburger Tafelmalerei der Spätgotik und Renaissance, Munich 1928). Apart from his prolific activities as an artist – such as for the famous patron Jakob Fugger, to whom he was something like an early court painter, which is attested to by the numerous portraits of the members of this family of bankers. He was also a biographer, having compiled the first directory of Augsburg painters.

We are grateful to Dr. Bernd Konrad, Radolfzell, for his valuable support in identifying this painting (private communication 6 August 2010).