Feuerprobe der hl. Kunigunde

Wolfgang Katzheimer the Elder was a Bamberg painter active around 1470–1508, one of the most distinctive masters of the Franconian painting tradition in the late fifteenth century. The Feuerprobe der hl. Kunigunde (Trial by Fire of Saint Kunigunde), now in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, depicts the dramatic legend of Saint Kunigunde — empress and wife of Holy Roman Emperor Henry II — who, falsely accused of adultery, proved her innocence by walking barefoot over red-hot plowshares without injury. Kunigunde was co-patron of the Diocese of Bamberg alongside her husband Henry, and her fire-ordeal legend was a major subject of Bamberg's local hagiographic tradition. Katzheimer's depiction of this dramatic miracle scene is one of the most vivid examples of Franconian narrative painting, combining local hagiographic pride with the expressiveness of German late-Gothic figure style.

Katzheimer employs the vigorous Franconian narrative style with angular, expressive figures and a compressed dramatic staging that brings the fire-ordeal to life with documentary immediacy. The empress's barefoot walk across the glowing plowshares is the dramatic center of the composition, surrounded by the emperor, the court, and ecclesiastical witnesses, all rendered with the Franconian tradition's characteristic intensity of facial expression.