( fl c. 1440; d Hamburg, 1473–4). The Netherlandish style of his works presupposes an early journey to the southern Netherlands and a debt to Jan van Eyck, Robert Campin and the Master of Girart de Roussillon. Bornemann’s small panel with the Calvary (c. 1440; Bremen, Roseliushaus) was the first north German work to follow the new realism of van Eyck. Instead of the usual gold ground, light plays around the figures, who are dressed in richly jewelled garments. The bodies are stocky, if somewhat two-dimensional, and Bornemann has attempted to create a three-dimensional landscape, even if the forms are still generalized. The same influences are shown in his four miniatures for the Sachsenspiegel (1442–8; Lüneburg, Rathaus) of Brand von Tzerstede (c. 1400–51) and in his high altarpiece for Heiligental Monastery in Lüneburg (after 1444; remains, Lüneburg, Nikolaikirche). The latter is dated from the view of Lüneburg in the panel of the Fall of Aegeus, in which the Gertrudenkapelle is shown under construction, while on the panel of the Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek, on the outside of the altarpiece, the chapel, completed in 1447, is shown in its finished state. The two views of Lüneburg are innovative in that the view in the Aegeus scene is below a gold ground, and in the Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek the town is shown as a detailed distant silhouette, separate from the large group in the foreground. Another panel of the Heiligental Altarpiece, the Baptism of Maximilla by St Andrew, bears witness to Bornemann’s knowledge of van Eyck’s Virgin and Child in a Church (Berlin, Gemäldegal.; see EYCK, VAN, (2), fig. 5) and works deriving from it. In the style of Campin’s paintings, however, he showed a view into a cathedral with a section of the front. The Baptism of Lucillus by St Lawrence presents a diagonal view into a church interior with a portal and cut-away stonework. There are carved reliefs of the Passion on the third view.

Part of the Bornemann family

• Bornemann, Hans
  • Bornemann
  • Funhof, Hinrik