Laib, Conrad (b Ensingen; fl c. 1440–60)

German painter, active in Austria. His name (‘Conrad Laib maler’) appears in several documents, and his place of birth is recorded as ‘Eyslingen in der von Otinglandt’, now identified as Ensingen in the former county of Öttingen in the Riesgau. Proof that he came to Salzburg at an early age is given by the stylistic affinity of his first works with Salzburg painting; for example, the two surviving panels of a Lady altar, showing the Birth of the Virgin (Freising, Klerikalsemin.) and an Adoration of the Magi (Cleveland, OH, Mus. A.), are both dated c. 1440, and both stand comparison particularly well with the Weildorf altar (Freising, St Klara), a Salzburg work of c. 1430–35. The fragmentary wall paintings in the Franziskanerkirche, Salzburg, dated 1446 and 1447, have been identified as from Laib’s workshop. Another of Laib’s early works, the indulgence panel from St Maximilian, Bischofshofen (Salzburg, Mus. Carolino Augusteum), is a diptych with indulgence texts stuck to the inside of the wings. On the exterior of one wing is a depiction of St Maximilian with the priest Heinrich Plehuber kneeling before him. This work was identified by Pächt and dated c. 1449, between the Freising Birth of the Virgin and one of Laib’s major works, a Crucifixion (1449; Vienna, Belvedere). The altarpiece to which the last belonged can be clearly visualized, as most of the panels survive (Padua, Pal. Vescovile, and Venice, Semin. Patriarcale). When closed it displayed two standing saints, St Corvinian on the left and St Florian on the right. The insides of the wings showed scenes from the Life of the Virgin: the Birth of the Virgin and Annunciation on the left and the Nativity and Death of the Virgin on the right. The fact that the Crucifixion bears the mark ...d Pfenning ... on the saddlecloth of the good centurion’s horse led to the assumption that the altarpiece was not one of Laib’s works, but this has now been refuted, due to its close stylistic affinities with other works known to be by him. As in Laib’s earlier works, the figures are characterized by their large, heavy forms. The crowded Crucifixion is of the ‘alpine’ type ‘mit Gedräng’, composed of a solid mass of figures with no indication of terrain except in the foreground. Because the individual figures are so closely packed the composition gives an impression of greater fragmentation than his earlier works. This quality is intensified in a second, signed Crucifixion (1457; Graz, Diözmus.), where the figures are divided into groups; in addition, the picture is given a more spacious feel by the use of a higher, more distant viewpoint. Two triangular panels showing St Hermes and St Primus (Salzburg, Mus. Carolino Augusteum) were considered to be covers for organ-wings, but their dimensions indicate that they belong to the crowning section of the altarpiece of 1449. St Hermes would have been at the top of the left-hand wing, pointing toward the Crucifixion, and St Primus would probably have been over the right-hand side of the centre panel. The figure of St Hermes may have been painted later than that of St Primus, since a north Italian influence, perhaps from Altichiero, can be very strongly felt; this is also apparent in motifs in the Crucifixion. This north Italian influence, with others from the Netherlands, France and Bohemia, characterizes Laib’s work.