_Master of the Cologne Crucifixion_ (Early German School: early 16th
century).
Part of an altar-piece, the rest of which is in the Munich Gallery, by
an artist whose name is unknown, and who is therefore called after his
principal works (now in the Cologne Museum). It has been well said of
him that "he succeeded in giving an intense expression of transient
emotion to the faces; but by endeavouring to lend a sympathetic action
to the whole figure, he has exaggerated the action into distortion"
(_History of Painting_, from the German of Woltmann and Woermann,
ii. 224). This is conspicuously the case here. Look, for instance,
at the comic contrast between St. Peter's big foot and St. Dorothy's
pointed little shoe--between what is almost a leer on his face and the
"mincing" affectation on hers. St. Peter is distinguished of course
by the keys; St. Dorothy by the basket of flowers--the flowers which
she sent to Theophilus in token of the truth of the faith in which she
died: "Carry these to Theophilus, say that Dorothea has sent them,
and that I go before him to the garden whence they came and await him
there" (see Mrs. Jameson; _Sacred and Legendary Art_, p. 336, ed.
1850).