Saint John the Baptist; and Saint Peter

These small devotional panels depicting Saint John the Evangelist, identified by the chalice from which a serpent emerges, and Saint Peter, shown with his traditional attribute of the keys, belong to the circle of Albrecht Dürer and may be dated to the 1520s or 1530s. The soft modeling of the youthful Saint John's face and flowing auburn hair recalls works by Dürer's pupil Hans Süss von Kulmbach. The unusual vertical format, combined with the panels' horizontal wood grain, suggest that they may once have belonged to a predella depicting the Apostles flanking a central Christ; the dark backgrounds were possibly added later to recast them as independent images following the altarpiece's dismemberment.

We are grateful to Joshua Waterman for generously sharing his observations about the attribution of the present lot on the basis of digital images (written communication, 4 November 2025).