Bernt Notke

Bernt Notke, assumed self-portrait (from the altarpiece Mass of St. Gregory, ca. 1504, destroyed 1942).

Bernt Notke (; – before May 1509) was a late Gothic artist from the Baltic region. He has been described as one of the foremost artists of his time in northern Europe.

Life Very little is known about the life of Bernt Notke. The Notke family came from Tallinn (Estonia) and his father was probably the trader and ship-owner Michel Notke, who had his main business there. His mother was probably Michel's second wife Gertraut, who was from Visby. Bernt Notke was born in the small town of Lassan in Pomerania. He was married (at least once), but the name of his wife remains unknown; she died before he did and is not mentioned in his last will and testament. The couple is known to have had two daughters, one named Anneke and another whose name has not been preserved and who seems to have had an intellectual disability.

He seems to have spent part of his youth in Flanders and there begun to learn his trade as an artist. He probably worked in the workshop of tapestry weaver Pasquier Grenier in Tournai, where he learned to work on art objects of a large scale. He probably also learned how to divide the labour in a workshop in a contemporary way there, as several of his own works were large, communal undertakings (see below). In the early 1460s he settled in Lübeck, where he would continue to live for the larger part of his life, although he would also intermittently live in Sweden and frequently traveled to cities around the Baltic Sea. He is mentioned in written sources for the first time by the city council of Lübeck on 14 April 1467. In 1479, he acquired a stone house on Breite Strasse, a prestigious address in Lübeck. He was in Stockholm for a prolonged period 1491 – 1497, during which time he for three years held the office of mint master of the realm in Sweden, but he left the city after the end of the regency of Sten Sture the Elder. After 1497, he lived in Lübeck until his death in 1509. In 1505, he acquired the title of Werkmeister at the Church of Saint Peter.

Work Artistic range Medieval art differed from contemporary art in several ways, not least in that while modern artists often work in private studios, the production of medieval art was a communal undertaking in a workshop. This was also the case with Bernt Notke, who was the head of such a workshop. During renovation of the large triumphal cross made by Notke in 1470–77, a note signed by Notke and five co-workers was discovered in a hollow part of one of the sculptures. It lists, apart from Notke himself, a carpenter, a painter and three other artisans. Several other works from different countries around the Baltic Sea and in Belgium have also earlier been attributed to Notke, but without much certainty. A number of works by Notke's hand have also been lost. The main altarpiece of Uppsala Cathedral was made by Notke but destroyed in a fire in 1702 (the appearance of approximately half of the altarpiece is known through drawings). Made in , this colossal altarpiece dedicated to St. Eric probably helped establish Notke's reputation in Scandinavia. It has been said that he was the only artist in northern Germany who can be compared with the astonishing artistic developments in the south of the country, and at the same time that he is the foremost representative of late Gothic art in the Baltic region.

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