——. Le joli buisson de Jonece, ed. Anthime Fourrier. Geneva:
Droz, 1975.
——. “Dits” et “Débats” avec en appendice quelques poèmes de
Guillame de Machaut, ed. Anthime Fourrier. Geneva: Droz,
- [Edited here are: Le temple d’honneur, Le joli mois de
may, Le dit de la margueritte, Le dit dou bleu chevalier, Le
debat dou cheval et dou levrier, Le dit dou fl orin, La plaidoirie
de la rose et de la violette.]
——. Chroniques: début du premier livre: édition du manuscrit
de Rome Reg. lat. 869, ed. George T. Diller. Geneva: Droz,
——. Méliador. roman comprenant les poésies lyriques de
Wenceslas de Bohême, due de Luxembourg et de Brabant, ed.
Auguste Longnon. 3 vols. Paris: Didot, 1895–99.
——. The Lyric Poems of Jean Froissart, ed. Rob Roy Mc-
Gregor, Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
——. Chronicles, trans. Geoffrey Brereton. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1968.
Dembowski, Peter F. Jean Froissart and His Méliador: Context,
Craft, and Sense. Lexington: French Forum, 1983.
Shears, Frederic Sidney. Froissart: Chronicler and Poet. London:
Routledge, 1930.
Peter F. Dembowski
FRUEAUF, RUELAND, THE ELDER
(ca. 1440/1450–1507)
Both documents and signed paintings allow us to trace
the career of Rueland Frueauf, who divided his time
between Passau and Salzburg. In the earliest records,
in the 1470s, he is working for St. Peter’s in Salzburg.
The modern scholar Alfred Stange assumes that he
received his training in Salzburg, perhaps with Conrad
Laib, but also notes the infl uence of the anonymous
Bavarian painters known as the Master of 1467 and the
Master of the Tegernsee Tabula Magna. In 1480, Freauf
acquired citizenship in Passau, where in the next four
years he completed the frescoes in the Rathaus (town
hall), now lost, that a Master Ruprecht had begun a
decade earlier.
In May 1484, Frueauf was called back to Salzburg
to discuss the altar planned for the Franciscan church,
but in August two donors, offering substantial sums
for the altar’s execution, managed to direct the com-
mission to Michael Pacher. How these events are to be
interpreted is a matter of debate. Stange sees the loss
of the commission as a hard blow for Frueauf and the
reason for his disappearance from the written records
for three years, and proposes that he spent this time on
a study trip, trying to update his style. Another scholar,
Grere Ring, by contrast, thinks it unlikely that Frueauf
was ever a candidate for the commission and that be-
ing asked to deliver an expertise on such an important
project was an honor.
In any case, we next encounter Frueauf in Nurem-
berg, where, in 1487, he dated and signed a panel with
his initials. Stange sees the infl uence of the Dutch painter
known as the Master of Flémalle in Frueauf’s work after
this date, without proposing that his travels took him all
the way to the Low Countries. By 1490, Frueauf was
back in Salzburg, working on a major commission. In
this year and the following he initialed and dated two of
eight scenes intended to serve in the wings of an altar-
piece. Scenes from the Passion—Christ in the Garden
of Gethsemane, the Flagellation, the Road to Calvary,
and the Crucifi xion—were visible at the sides of the
sculptured shrine when the altarpiece was open, while
scenes from the life if the Virgin—Annunciation, Nativ-
ity, Adoration of the Magi, and Assumption—occupied
the out-sides of the wings (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum, nos. 1397–1400).
In 1497 Frueauf is mentioned again as citizen of Pas-
sau, as is his son, the painter Rueland Frueauf the Young-
er. A year later the father’s citizenship was revoked for
failure to pay his debts, but it was soon reinstated on the
recommendation of well-placed friends. From the last
decade of Frueauf’s life comes the initialed but undated
portrait of Jobst Seyfried (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches
Museum), the only preserved evidence of Frueauf’s
work in this genre.
This group of autograph works allows a clear defi -
nition of Frueauf’s innovative style. Painted in bright
colors with hard outlines, his fi gures are tall and slim. In-
dividualized facial types convey a variety of expressions,
which are heightened by dramatic gestures and lively
drapery patterns. His fi gures tend to fi ll the foreground,
prohibiting a view into the background, another device
for concentrating the emotional impact of the works. On
the basis of similarities to Frueauf’s known paintings, a
number of other works have been attributed to him; most
common among these are twelve Passion scenes from
an altarpiece, probably from circa 1480 (Regensburg,
Historisches Verein), and a large, late panel representing
Christ as Man of Sorrows (Schmerzensmann) (Munich,
Alte Pinakothek, no. 10681).
See also Pacher, MichaelFurther Reading
Baldass, Ludwig von. Conrad Laib und die beiden Rueland
Frueauf. Vienna: Schroll, 1946.
Buchner, Ernst. “Ein Schmerzensmann von Rueiand Frueauf d.
é.” Pantheon 16 (1943): 73–76.
Ring, Grete. “Frueauf, Rueland d. é.” Allgemeines Lexikon der bil-
denden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, ed. Ulrich
Thieme. Leipzig: Seemann, 1916, vol. 12, pp. 532–534.
Stange, Alfred. Deutsche Malerei der Gotik. vol. 10: Salzburg,
Bayern und Tirol in der Zeit von 1400 bis 1500. Munich:
Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1960, pp. 38–42.
Joan A. HolladayFRUEAUF, RUELAND