WILHELM STETTER (STRASBOURG, 1487 – STRASBOURG, 1552) Emperor Constantine Bringing the Holy Cross to Rome 1516 Oil on panel 88 x 80 cm. On the reverse, a large Maltese cross; an old label providing information on the provenance, dated 1516 in the top left-hand corner of the archway; above the archway beneath the Maltese cross: ‘F’ (for Frater?) and ‘W’ (for Wilhelm). Provenance Private collection, Lucerne. A procession of sumptuously dressed figures follows a cross-bearer. Upon reaching the gates of a city, the procession appears to pause. In the background, visible in the distance, on the left is a stretch of sea bordered by mountains and, on the right, a fortified castle and the tents of a marching army. In the centre, the figure clad in a long purple cloak trimmed with a fur collar represents the Roman Emperor Constantine, recently converted to Christianity, who, accompanied by his court, is bringing to Rome the cross discovered by his mother Helena in the Holy Land. According to legend, in 312 AD, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, north of Rome, during the succession struggle against Maxentius, Constantine had a vision of a cross in the sky promising him victory: ‘By this sign, you shall conquer’. Constantine then decided to have this symbol affixed to the shields of all his soldiers. After his victory, he banned the persecution of Christians before converting himself. The cross, a sign of victory, was subsequently adopted by numerous orders of knights. In this updated version, the ancient scene depicts the painter’s contemporaries dressed in the fashion of the Renaissance. Whilst the static arrangement of these long, elegant silhouettes clustered in the foreground foreground and the succession of tiered planes teeming with refined details still belong to the International Gothic style, the atmospheric perspective with its bluish mountains in the background already shows the influence of the latest pictorial innovations seeking depth and illusionism characteristic of the German Renaissance. Wilhelm Stetter (1487–1552) was a German painter originally from Strasbourg. Long known as ‘Master W.S. of the Maltese Cross’, he was identified in 1952 by the art historian Jean Rott (1911–1998). Having joined the commandery of the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem as an acolyte in 1509, Stetter was ordained a priest in Basel in 1512. He then held the post of curator of the commandery’s art treasures in Strasbourg. Wilhelm Stetter’s paintings were commissioned by his order, whose emblem—the cross—was the object of particular veneration, necessitating the need to recount its history. Following the destruction of the commandery in 1633, Stetter’s works were dispersed amongst the churches of Strasbourg. In 1741, the curator Jean-François-Ignace Goetzmann drew up an inventory of the commandery’s works held within the Church of Saint John in Strasbourg. Now scattered across the world, the works attributed to Wilhelm Stetter number around thirty; some are dated, as here, whilst others bear the monogram WS. The latest known work is dated 1548. Whilst the painting of Constantine retains a style that is still medieval, it nevertheless shows strong influences from Hans Baldung (1485–1545), to whom Stetter may have been a pupil between 1510 and 1512. Certain details also bring to mind Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528).