Master MS Mester and His Age

The Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, is exhibiting MS Master, one of the most renowned anonymous masters of Hungarian medieval art history. Seven panels of the artist's monumental masterpiece of late Gothic art will be on display, the former high altar of St Catherine's Church in Selmecbánya (1506), along with two sculptures that once belonged to the same altar. Part of the preparations for the exhibition is a complex research project involving a team of historians, art historians and conservators, whose main aim is to define the artistic milieu surrounding the medieval master. In addition to the painting style of the MS Master, the research also looks at drawings associated with the altar or the Master himself, and will seek to reconstruct the social, historical, ecclesiastical and artistic context of the altarpiece. This exhibition and catalogue hope to provide a clearer picture of Master MS, to locate more precisely the artistic regions that defined his original environment and style, to take stock of the diverse stylistic elements of his paintings, to identify other works of art produced by him or his workshop. The exhibition reassess the role of the creator(s) of this altarpiece not only in Hungarian art, but also in the context of European painting and sculpture.