Unknown Saint
c. 1480
Medium
paste print
Dimensions
sheet: 5.5 × 5.1 cm (2 3/16 × 2 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Rosenwald Collection
Accession Number
1943.3.792
Art Historical Context
Nestled in the National Gallery of Art's Rosenwald Collection, *Unknown Saint* is a paste print created by an anonymous German artist around 1480. Measuring just 5.5 × 5.1 cm, this tiny work from the Prints department (CG-E) captures a holy figure in a style typical of late 15th-century German devotional art, bridging Gothic piety and emerging Renaissance naturalism. Paste prints, a short-lived innovation of the era, achieved vivid color by layering and pasting translucent colored papers onto a black-line woodcut base—mimicking the effects of illuminated manuscripts or panel paintings without...
About the Artist
German 15th Century
**German 15th Century** The designation "German 15th Century" encompasses a collective of anonymous artists active in the late medieval and early Renaissance periods in Germany, primarily known through their contributions to early printmaking and panel painting. These creators emerged during a transformative era when woodcuts and engravings began democratizing religious imagery, bridging the Goth...