Disputation of Saints Erasmus and Mauritius (Maurice)

A bishop and a soldier, told apart by equipment

Erasmus is identified by a windlass — a winch — which the tradition attaches to the manner of his death, together with the mitre and vestments of a bishop. Maurice is identified as a soldier: armour, a lance or banner, and the command of the Theban Legion that his legend gives him. He is also, by a convention established in German lands in the thirteenth century and held for centuries afterwards, depicted as a Black African knight. Two saints, two complete uniforms, and no possibility of confusing them. This is the only title in the collection naming either.

What the record holds

The catalogue dates the work to 1523 and gives the Alte Pinakothek in Munich as its location. The dimensions are 226 x 176 cm, a large upright. It is filed under group portraiture, Religion and religious cultural heritage, with Northern Renaissance as the style and German as the nationality; the measured colour family is ochre.

What a disputation is

The title names a debate rather than an event with an outcome. Painting uses the form to put two figures from different centuries in the same space and let their attributes argue for them — one of the clearest cases of an image where nothing happens and everything is stated. The record fixes the year, the size and the collection; the pairing is what the title reports.