In memory of Walter DeJarnette Coleman

Matthias Grünewald (1470–1528) was a German painter. Only ten of his paintings and thirty-five drawings survive, though these reported numbers vary. Many works were lost at sea, amid the spoils of war, and so forth. Details of Grünewald’s life are unclear and contradictory. Stories of his curious doublings abound: he is frequently credited as having lived a double life, and he is also cited, on multiple occasions, as a person various people pretended to be. Frankfurt records dating to 1512 indicate that he married a woman named Anna, age eighteen. In 1523 she was institutionalized for demonic possession. Grünewald is most often described as a withdrawn, melancholic man. He died in poverty.

His most famous work is the Isenheim Altarpiece, created from 1506 to about 1515 for the hospital chapel of Saint Anthony’s Monastery near Colmar. The Antonine monks were famous for their treatment...

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