High altar in St Mary’s Church, Kraków

The high altar in Kraków’s Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is generally considered to be the first verified work of the Late Gothic sculptor Veit Stoß (1447–1533), and one of his chefs d’oeuvre. It is thought that Stoß obtained the commission for the retable via the intermediation of merchants from Nuremberg, who had settled in Kraków in the 15^th century, founded branches of their commercial enterprises there, and secured important positions in the city council. The 13-metre-high, 11-metre-wide piece is the largest Late Gothic altarpiece in the world, and features portrayals of Mary’s death, assumption, and coronation, as well as stories and motifs from the lives of Mary and Jesus.

Marian altarpiece in St Mary’s Church, Kraków, colour photograph, 2021, photograph: Zygmunt Put; source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_Our_Lady_Assumed_into_Heaven,_St._Mary%27s_(Main)_Altar_(1489_by_Veit_Stoss),_5_Mariacki_square,_Old_Town,_Krak%C3%B3w,_Poland.jpg, Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.de.