The Wings of the Altenberg Altarpiece Left wing: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi Right wing: St. Michael, Coronation of the Virgin, St. Elizabeth, Death of the Virgin

The Altenberg Altarpiece is one of the most significant surviving examples of fourteenth-century German Gothic painting, produced for the Premonstratensian convent at Altenberg an der Lahn in the Rhineland. These wings, at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, present a comprehensive Marian and hagiographic programme across eight panels: Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, and Adoration of the Magi on the left, with Saint Michael, Coronation of the Virgin, Saint Elizabeth, and Death of the Virgin on the right. The Meister des Obersteiner Altars produced one of the finest examples of the Cologne-Rhineland tradition, combining Byzantine-influenced gold grounds with the increasing naturalism of International Gothic figure painting.

The multi-panel format imposes rigorous compositional consistency across scenes of varying drama and scale. Gold grounds unify the eight panels while individual scenes are rendered with growing attention to narrative expression and spatial organization. Drapery in the International Gothic manner creates fluid, rhythmic surfaces. The figures' faces are individualized within the idealized conventions of the Rhineland school.