Halbfigur eines Propheten

The Master of the Polling Panels's Halbfigur eines Propheten (Half-Figure of a Prophet), painted around 1450 and now in the Bavarian State Painting Collections, depicts one of the Hebrew prophets — a type of figure that typically appeared in the subsidiary registers of large altarpiece programs, often as prophetic forerunners of the Christian narrative scenes in the main panels. Prophet figures holding scrolls inscribed with their Old Testament texts were a standard feature of Gothic altarpiece design, connecting the New Testament events depicted in the main panels to the Hebrew scriptural tradition that Christian theology understood them to fulfill.

Tempera on panel. The prophet is shown in half-length, holding a scroll or banderole with an inscription. The treatment of the face emphasizes the visionary, otherworldly quality appropriate to a prophetic figure — intense gaze, perhaps a beard suggesting venerable age.