OSTENDORFER, Michael

(b. ~1494 Regensburg, d. 1549 Regensburg)

German painter, draughtsman and woodcut designer. He was first mentioned as a master and citizen of Regensburg in 1520. At about the same time he produced his earliest surviving work, including two large woodcuts, The Pilgrimage to the Church of the Beautiful Virgin of Regensburg, and the New Church of the Beautiful Virgin. These establish an association with Altdorfer who clearly exercised a strong influence on him from the beginning, and who may have trained him. The former woodcut outstandingly illustrates the sort of religious hysteria that Luther among others was to decry, prompted by reports of hundreds of miracles happening at a church built on the site of a synagogue after the expulsion of Jews from Regensburg in 1619.

In 1536 Ostendorfer moved to Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate where he became court painter to Frederick II, Count Palatinate (1482-1556).

Ostendorfer’s known oeuvre comprises 38 signed or attributed paintings, 150 woodcuts and 10 drawings.

"The Pilgrimage to the "Fair Virgin" in Regensburg"

The figure of the Madonna stands in front of a wooden church being adored by crowds of ecstatic pilgrims. The image is that of the supposedly wonder-working cultic statue of the “Fair Virgin” in Regensburg, which was visited by large crowds of pilgrims in the 1520s after the Pope granted indulgences for such pilgrimages. Ostendorfer’s woodcut was on sale as a souvenir. This particular print belonged to Albrecht D�rer, who in a comment in his own hand, dated 1523, criticised the growth of the pilgrimage industry.

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Self-Portrait

The carnation in the painter’s hand indicates that the self-portrait was painted for the occasion of marriage. There is a written, albeit later added, reference to it on the reverse of the panel: “Michael Ostendorfer, self-portrait as bridegroom.” The portrait is reminiscent of portraits by Joos van Cleve.

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