Design for a Tabernacle
Michael Ostendorfer German
Not on view
Having only recently been established as a master in the records of the city of Regensburg, Michael Ostendorfer produced this impressive design for a tabernacle in 1521. It displays the new taste for a more classical, architectural vocabulary inspired by known artworks of the Italian Renaissance. Depicting the Last Supper, the Gathering of the Manna, and the Crucifixion, the iconography of the tabernacle clearly points toward its function as a storehouse for the host (sacramental bread), which was to be placed in the vacant niche below. Although no executed example of this design is known, it has been suggested that it was meant for the Church of the Beautiful Virgin, which was rebuilt in Regensburg about 1521. Ostendorfer himself came up with an inventive design for the building, which was never executed but was recorded by the artist in another large woodcut.
