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Published 20/01/2020 | 10:14
Niguliste Museum

Research and exhibition project on two altarpieces attributed to Michel Sittow launched

Michel (ka Michiel, Michael, Miguel) Sittow? (1469? - 1525). Kannatusaltari (Antoniuse altari) vasaku ja parema tiiva välisküljed. 1517 - 1518. Eesti Kunstimuuseum
Michel (also Michiel, Michael, Miguel) Sittow? (1469? - 1525).

On 15–17 January 2020, Estonian, Swedish and Finnish art historians and museum specialists met at the Niguliste Museum and a research and exhibition project on two altarpieces attributed to Michel Sittow was launched.

The Art Museum of Estonia, in cooperation with the Hälsingland Museum, will launch a research and exhibition project on two late medieval works of art, the Tallinn Passion Altarpiece and the Bollnäs altarpiece. Both works are associated with Michel Sittow (ca 1469–1525), an internationally renowned painter who was born and worked in Tallinn and studied in the Netherlands. The paintings on the outer wings of the Passion Altarpiece, which are attributed to Sittow, are very similar in style to those on the Bollnäs altarpiece.

Lars Nylander, curator from Hälsingland Museum, Merike Kurisoo, curator from Niguliste Museum,  Gunilla Steinberg, the director of Hälsingland Museum, and ja Tarmo Saaret, director of Niguliste Museum.

The international project involves specialists from Estonia, Sweden and Finland, several institutions, as well as prominent experts of Netherlandish art. The director of the Hälsingland Museum Gunilla Stenberg and curator Lars Nylander, CEO of the Art Museum of Estonia Sirje Helme, director of the Niguliste Museum Tarmo Saaret, curators Greta Koppel and Merike Kurisoo, as well as docent Elina Räsänen from the University of Helsinki participated at the meetings at the Niguliste Museum. On Friday, 17 January the project was introduced to the embassies of Estonia and the Nordic Countries, culture professionals and the representatives of the church.

According to the Merike Kurisoo, curator of the Niguliste Museum and the Chair of the Research Board of the Art Museum of Estonia, what makes the project special, is that for the first time the two altarpieces attributed to Michel Sittow are viewed together. “Sittow is, primarily, valued as a superb portrait painter and the large altarpieces associated with his name have received much less attention. It is known from the written sources that during his time of work in Tallinn, Michel Sittow painted works for the local churches and, apparently, works were commissioned from him to Finland and Sweden.”
In art history tradition, it has been assumed that the Bollnäs altarpiece was produced in Tallinn. Therefore, the project also addresses the issue of Tallinn as a late medieval art centre and the local art production in the context of the Baltic Sea region.

The project was triggered by the international exhibition Michel Sittow. Estonian Painter at the Courts of Renaissance Europe at the Art Museum of Estonia and National Gallery of Art in Washington DC in 2018 (curators Greta Koppel and John Oliver Hand). The artist’s monographic exhibition assembled rare works from famous museums and private collections, thereby establishing a basis for the further research of Sittow’s oeuvre. The art historical research on the altarpieces in Tallinn and Bollnäs associated with Michel Sittow is a kind of afterlife for the large-scale Sittow exhibition.