Antonius Altar, Außenansicht des linken und rechten Flügels

Michael Sittow, an Estonian painter trained in the Netherlands who served as court painter to Isabella I of Castile and later the Habsburg court, painted this Antonius Altar exterior around 1517. Sittow was one of the most internationally mobile painters of his era, working for courts across Europe before returning to his native Tallinn late in life. 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.

The altar wings demonstrate Sittow's exceptional Netherlandish technique refined through decades of court service, with the meticulous finish and subtle tonal modeling that earned him patronage across Europe.