Apostles: Bartholomew, Simon, Andrew

The relief depicts a group of apostles: Bartholomew, Simon and Andrew standing against the backdrop of a curtain. The men are dressed in long richly gilded coats with the following attributes in their hands: a knife, a saw and an X-shaped cross – objects associated with their martyrdom.

The sculpture is a remnant of the main altarpiece from St Mary's Church in Dąbie (now a district of Szczecin), eight fragments of which found their way into the Szczecin museum's collection after the church fire in 1864. Among them were three more reliefs depicting the other apostles and four large panels showing Passion scenes (Scourging, Crowning with Thorns). Two smaller and two larger fragments were lost during the Second World War. Currently on permanent exhibition of the Mystery of Light. Medieval Art in Pomerania, you can see the four remaining parts of the Dąbie retabulum from the museum's former collection – Lamentation (inv. no. MNS/Szt/170), The entombment of Christ (inv. no. MNS/Szt/169), Group of Apostles: Paul, Thomas, James the Greater (inv. no. MNS/Szt/9) and the Group of Apostles presented: Bartholomew, Simon, Andrew.

The shape of the reliefs makes it possible to reconstruct the location of the apostolic college in the predella, or platform base of the altar. Its subject matter was probably complemented by a depiction of Christ the Saviour – possibly a Salvator Mundi figurine preserved in the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin (inv. no. MNS/Szt/63). Such an assumption arises from an analysis of the composition of the Passion altarpiece from Zwischenahn (Lower Saxony) indicated as one of the analogies for the Dąbie altarpiece, and the workshop affinity of the Salvator sculpture to the sculptural groups of the apostles.

Kinga Krasnodębska