( fl ?Berne, c. 1500). Swiss painter. The anonymous painter is named after a winged altar (Berne, Schweizer. Landhaus), the outer faces of which represent the Mass of St Gregory. He was one of a number of Late Gothic Swiss painters who ‘signed’ their works by including carnations in their pictures in a variety of ways. Besides the altar after which he is named and other more or less related works, a Nativity (Zurich, Ksthaus) consisting of two sections can also be ascribed to him; the same carnation ‘mark’ can be seen on the reverse side. As this mark does not contain a concealed signature, there is no workshop link with the other CARNATION MASTERS (see above), whose style is more akin to that of Zurich. The origin and style of his works suggest that he lived in Berne and had been influenced by the painter Hans Fries, who worked in Freiburg. Supposedly Alsatian elements in his work have led to identification (Stange) of this Master with Paul Löwensprung of Strasbourg (d 1499), who is known to have been in Berne from 1493 but to whom no work can authoritatively be ascribed.

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