Master Francke

Master Francke, also called Meister Francke, was a North German Gothic painter and Dominican friar active from about 1380 to about 1440. He was likely born in the Lower Rhine region or the Dutch town of Zutphen and probably died in Hamburg, where he spent his later career at St John's Priory and became the city's leading painter after Master Bertram. Two of his altarpieces survive in part, one dedicated to Saint Thomas of Canterbury and completed in 1436 for Hamburg's traders association, and one dedicated to Saint Barbara that may have been made for a Finnish patron. Both are painted in an intense style that shows awareness of French and Early Netherlandish court art, and surviving panels are now held in the Hamburger Kunsthalle and other museums.