This is one of the largest surviving winged altars from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary and is currently kept at the Magyar Nemzeti Galéria in Budapest. From the end of the fifteenth century, it adorned the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Sabinov, in the historical region of Šariš. In connection with the great jubilee marking a millennium of the arrival of the Hungarians in Central Europe in 1896, this altar, which had suffered serious damage over the centuries, together with two side altars, was transported to Budapest and placed in the Iparművészeti Múzeum, and in 1909 it was moved to the newly opened Szépművészeti Múzeum. After the end of the Second World War, it underwent thorough conservation, which was carried out intermittently until 2020.
The beautifully carved predella is decorated with leaves, bunches of grapes and birds. It is also adorned with two coats of arms, the Polish coat of arms on the heraldic left side and the Hungarian coat of arms on the right. The year of completion of the altarpiece (1516) is inscribed on the reverse side of one of the painted panels of the wings. However, it is assumed that the process of creating this work spanned many years. The figures placed in the corpus of the retable seem stylistically older than the paintings and may have been created as early as the final decade of the fifteenth century. The identity of the founder of the work is also unclear. Both the date and the coats of arms point to King Władysław II Jagiellończyk (King of Hungary from 1490 to 1516). This assumption is also confirmed by the king’s visit to Sabinov in the spring of 1494, on his way to the Jagiellonian Congress in Levoča. Just as the brothers gathered at the congress in Levoča decided to fund an altar for the local church of St. James in memory of that important event, King Władysław probably had a similar plan when he visited Sabinov and the local parish church on his way there.
It has also been suggested that the altar was a joint foundation of the kings of Poland and Hungary, which would explain why the coats of arms of Poland and Hungary were placed in its predella. Perhaps it was a symbol of reconciliation between the rulers, which was to take place during the congress in Levoča in 1494. It is worth remembering that in 1490, during the struggle for the Hungarian crown between Władysław Jagiellończyk and his brother Jan Olbracht, Sabinov sided with Olbracht, and in 1492, King Władysław, seeking to win its favour, confirmed the town’s legal privileges. The thaw in relations between the brothers after the Congress of Levoča may indeed have been the impetus for the funding of this altar. It remains difficult to determine which of these hypotheses is correct.
Budapest, Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Predella of the high altar from the parish church of St. John the Baptist in Sabinov, before 1516
© Tibor Mester
Cat. 1.5
