MASTER of the Polling Panels

German painter. He was one of the most distinctive artists in early Bavarian painting and worked in the area around Munich and Kremsmünster. His oeuvre, which can be assembled with certainty on stylistic grounds, includes the panels of two winged altarpieces from the Augustinian monastery at Polling in Upper Bavaria, after which he is named. Four of these come from an altarpiece of scenes from the Life of the Virgin and are dated 1444. The altarpiece was donated by Duke Albert II of Bavaria (reg. 1438-60) and his wife, Anna (1420-74). The surviving panels are an Annunciation and Adoration of the Magi (Munich, Alte Pinakothek) and a Nativity and Presentation in the Temple (Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum). Two further panels come from an altarpiece of the Holy Cross; they are a Crucifixion and three scenes of the Discovery of the True Cross (Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum). Four further panels from an altarpiece of the Life of the Virgin, dated 1439, are in the Stiftsgalerie, Kremsmünster. Two well-preserved panels with St Peter and St Paul are also extant (private collection).