WITZ, KONRAD. - Painter, born around 1400 and died circa 1466 in Basel or Geneva.
The first known work of K. W. is an altarpiece (after 1434) of which eight panels remain in the Basel Museum, some depicting pairs of biblical figures, such as Esther and Ahasuerus, Abraham and Melchizedek, David and Abishai, two in Dijon (one figure symbolizing The Church and a
St. Augustine), and one in the Deutsches Museum in Berlin (Solomon and the Queen of Sheba). Other panels, from a later period, are preserved in Basel (St. Christopher, The Meeting of Joachim and Anna, The Archangel Gabriel), in Nuremberg (Annunciation), in Strasbourg (SS. Mary Magdalene and Catherine), as well as the Holy Family from the Naples Museum and the Crucifixion from the Berlin Museum. But even more important are the remnants of the altarpiece with the signature and date 1444, painted on commission for the Bishop of Geneva, Francesco de Mies; these are now in the museum of that city and depict: The Adoration of the Magi, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, The Liberation of St. Peter, Cardinal Francesco de Mies Recommended to the Madonna and St. Peter.
K. W. is commonly regarded as the most notable exponent of pictorial realism in 15th-century German art; yet his output, which is somewhat uneven and at times crudely naive with vigorous but not always harmonious coloring, also includes accents of fanciful transcendence. Some of his achievements in landscape and setting are admirable, as seen in The Miraculous Draught of Fishes and St. Christopher, and certain compact depictions of gleaming armor in invented figures.