Heilige Klara und Elisabeth

Clare of Assisi and Elizabeth of Hungary — founders of female religious orders and emblems of royal women embracing voluntary poverty — are paired in this 1485 panel now associated with the Munich Central Collecting Point, the post-war repository for art displaced by the Second World War. Clare, founder of the Poor Clares, and Elizabeth, Franciscan tertiary and princess who devoted herself to the poor, represent different paths of female sanctity. Their pairing was common in Franciscan contexts, suggesting Franciscan patronage or a chapel with connections to that order.

Clare's dark Franciscan habit and Elizabeth's royal dress provide contrasting costumes for Zeitblom to render with his characteristic precision. Clare's monstrance or Rule, and Elizabeth's crown alongside her beggar's bowl, are given careful material description as defining saintly attributes.