Plague Altarpiece: Angry God the Father and Virgin Mary

Martin Schaffner, the leading painter of Ulm, created this Plague Altarpiece panel showing God the Father's wrath tempered by the Virgin's intercession in 1514. Commissioned during plague outbreaks, such altarpieces served as devotional aids and communal expressions of hope for divine mercy against epidemic disease. The tempera medium required careful preparation on a gessoed panel and a disciplined layering technique that produced precise, durable surfaces suited to the intricate detail expected of devotional painting.

Schaffner's panel combines monumental figure style with vivid color and dramatic gesture, reflecting Ulm's position between Swabian and Bavarian artistic traditions.