Altarpiece of St Catherine's Church, Zwickau [left wing]

The left wing of the Altarpiece for St Catherine's Church in Zwickau (1518) at the Katharinenkirche — the church to which it belongs and for which it was made — is one of the rare cases where a Cranach altarpiece component survives in its original ecclesiastical setting. Most Cranach altarpieces have been dispersed — their wings separated, their panels removed to museums, their original contexts lost — and the survival of Zwickau's altarpiece in the church it was made for gives this work a documentary and atmospheric significance beyond its aesthetic qualities alone. Zwickau was an important Saxon city in the early sixteenth century — a prosperous mining and textile center with strong civic culture — and its St Catherine's Church was a significant local institution. The church's decision to preserve its altarpiece through the Reformation (when many such Catholic devotional objects were destroyed or dispersed) reflects either the altarpiece's particular value or local decisions about the limits of iconoclastic reform.

The left wing mirrors the right wing's compositional approach — a tall, upright figure or figures within an architectural or landscape setting — creating bilateral symmetry when the altarpiece is viewed as a whole. Cranach maintains the palette and line quality consistent across all the altarpiece components.