KLOCKER, Hans - b. ~1458 ?, d. ~1500 South Tyrol

Austrian wood-carver. Probably from Gais, South Tyrol, he was first recorded in Brixen (now Bressanone, Italy) in 1478 and can perhaps be identified with the Master Hans Maler who is mentioned many times in the cathedral records between 1477 and 1498. Rather than a panel painter, he is likely to have been a surveyor and head of a workshop producing complete altarpieces, including both sculpture and painting. In 1478-79 he employed four assistants and was one of the leading employers in Brixen. He also produced works for Bozen (now Bolzano, Italy) and its region. He was Mayor of Brixen in 1497-98; his last documented work (the retable of the former Franciscan church in Bolzano) dates from 1500.

St Stephen

Gothic sculptors followed the same path - from statue-columns and relief decorations to sculpture in the round - as their ancient forerunners, but their means of conquering space was the expressive lines rather than the anatomical softness of volumes. In Northern Europe this evolution can be traced in carved wooden altars, one of which included this piece, from the workshop of a celebrated Austrian sculptor. The first Christian martyr is presented in a deacon’s robes holding a prayer book and stones, the instrument of his death.