Master of the Virgo inter Virgines: life and works

The Master of the Virgo inter Virgines was an Early Netherlandish painter and designer of woodcuts active roughly Delft along with 1483 and 1498. He is named for The Virgin and Child later than Four Holy Virgins, an altarpiece of the Virgin subsequent to Saints Catherine, Cecilia, Ursula, and Barbara which formerly hung in the convent of Konigsveld, but which is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. He was first distinguished individually in 1903; based on the style of the altarpiece a considerable body of play has since been built up. The Master has been described as the most uncompromisingly “realist” of his contemporaries, and not at everything concerned considering elegance; he has in addition to been called a forerunner of the Dutch theoretical of painting.

The additional main master lively in Delft in these years, and rather later, was the Master of Delft, whose style shared more characteristics of Antwerp Mannerism, though moreover rooted in realism.