MULTSCHER, HANS. - Sculptor and painter, born shortly before 1400 at Reichenhofen in the Allgäu, died in the first months of 1467 at Ulm. Having moved to the latter city, he took part in the construction of the Cathedral and the Town Hall.
His most notable work is the high altar of the parish church of Vipiteno, completed and inaugurated in 1458–59, unfortunately dismantled and partially destroyed in the Baroque period. Its reconstruction was attempted by Bossert; four curtain-bearing angels, two crown-bearing angels, the statue of the Virgin, four saints, as well as St. George and St. Florian, and four large painted
panels are preserved. Other important sculptures are the altar, or Ecce Homo, of the western portal (Ulm monastery [ca. 1430–35]), the relief with Emperor Carlo il Grosse and his retinue (Rathaus of the same city); the model for the tomb of Ludovico il Barbuto (National Museum of Munich); numerous wooden statues, such as the Christ on the Cross (cloister of Wiblingen), the enthroned Virgin (Klosterwald), the Mary Magdalene (Germanic Museum of Berlin), and the Wurzbach altar, with statues and paintings.
A man of profound artistic culture, M., though living in the late Gothic period, fully renews its ideals, establishing himself as the founder of Swabian monumental realism and as the foremost representative of local art. His personal contribution consists in the harmony between the geometrization of masses and a naturalism carried even to extremes, especially in the study of anatomical structures.