Der hl. Sebald

Wolf Traut depicted Saint Sebald around 1517, honoring the patron saint of Nuremberg whose shrine in the Sebalduskirche was one of the city's most revered cult objects. Traut's workshop in Nuremberg produced numerous devotional images of local saints for the city's churches and confraternities. The tempera-on-panel medium required a carefully gessoed surface and was painted in fine, precise layers, yielding a luminous, jewel-like surface of great durability.

The panel reflects the solid Nuremberg workshop tradition with detailed rendering of the saint's attributes and vestments, executed in the clear, precise drawing style indebted to Dürer's influence.