In the center, a heraldic shield surmounted by a helm and surrounded by mantling shares the space with the half-nude figure of the classical heroine Lucretia. She is about to plunge a dagger into her breast. The format follows the standard for Swiss panels honoring a single individual. An elaborate architectural frame includes flanking columns with elaborate plinths and capitals supporting an arch of two reciprocal volutes. Above the arch, on either side, are scenes of Adam and Eve, God creates the first couple, and they then disobey by eating the forbidden fruit. At the bottom of the panel is an inscription on uncolored glass. The panel apportions hue and value to create a balanced composition. The intensity of the brilliant red damask background and the pervasive hot yellow silver stain, especially in Lucretia’s garments, achieve a decidedly warm tonality in the center of the panel. Green, used for the arch, acts as a frame for the less intense hues of the two narrative scenes.

The panel depicts the arms of Fridolin Kleger, who is recorded as having held the post of bailiff of the Gaster region (Historisch- Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz, 1927, p. 502, “Kleger family in the Canton of St. Gallen”). Gaster (Gastal, Gastel), a region in the canton St. Gallen, was a Swiss federal bailiwick, under control of two Swiss cantons, namely Schwyz und Glarus. The region lies about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south east of Zurich. The Kleger were the most important family of Kaltbrunn, a village in the Gaster. Fridly (Fridolin) Kleger is known to have held the office of bailiff of the Gaster in 1548, 1549, 1551 and 1562. His brother Jörg (Georg) Kleger held the same office between 1565 and 1582 (Elsener, 1951, p. 74). A 1561 panel honoring Jörg Kleger shows a more conventional image, Kaltbunn’s patron, St. George slaying the dragon (Anderes, 1970, pp.138–39, fig. 133).

The Getty panel was commissioned a year before Fridolin Kleger’s last year of service as bailiff. The upper segments show the creation of Eve on the left and the Fall on the right; in each representation the first couple is completely nude. In the Creation, God is dressed as an ecclesiastic with a miter surmounted by a cross. A dog, bird, fish, salamander, bear, steer, and deer attest to the richness of God’s work before his final achievement: humans. In the Fall, the serpent tempting Eve has the head of a woman, and various animals, horse, ram, goat, and stag, surround the first couple.

Capturing the viewer’s attention, the image of Lucretia is modeled in three-dimensional volume. The figural image is based on an engraving after Sebald Beham, Lucretia Standing, of 1519 (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1943.3.1229). She displays a dramatically undraped leg and breast as she drives a dagger into her heart. This classic story concerning the final days of the monarchy and the rise of the Roman Republic was told by Livy. Lucretia was a virtuous Roman matron married to a military leader, Lucius Tarquinis Collatinus. One day after Lucius and other men were drinking at the home of the king’s son, Sextus Tarquinius, they each spoke of their wives. “Encouraged by the wine,” they decided to visit each immediately to determine which was more exemplary. Lucretia was found hard at work on her weaving in the midst of her servants. Lucius won the wager, but the visit inflamed the lust of Sextus. He later returned and accosted Lucretia while she slept, demanding that she give in to him, or he would kill both her and a servant and declare that he had found them in bed together. Lucretia succumbed. The next day she sent messages to both her husband and her father to come to see her each with a friend. When they arrived, she confronted the men with the story of her dishonor. Livy writes: “‘I will absolve myself of blame, and I will not free myself from punishment. No woman shall use Lucretia as her example in dishonor.’ Then she took up a knife which she had hidden beneath her robe, and plunged it into her heart, collapsing from her wound; she died there amid the cries of her husband and father.” The spectators reacted with horror and resolve. One of the witnesses, Brutus, spoke for them all when he declared, “I swear before you, O gods, to chase the King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, with his criminal wife and all their offspring, by fire, iron, and all the methods I have at my disposal, and never to tolerate Kings in Rome evermore.” Thus, was born the Roman Republic (Titus Livy, The History of Rome, vol. 1, book 1, sections LVII-LIX). In the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the story of Lucretia was a commonly cited morality tale featured in the plays and poems of Shakespeare, Chaucer, John Lydgate, John Gower, and Machiavelli. The theme was known through numerous paintings, including works by Botticelli, Titian, Rembrandt, Dürer, and Jörg Breu the Elder. One wonders about the motivations of the donor. Did this minor official see himself as proclaiming the ancient heritage of the Swiss Confederation of independent cantons? At the same time, did Kleger feel that this mingling of classical and Christian themes reflected humanist values and proclaimed his cultivated tastes?

The style and composition are similar to that of the work of Carl von Egeri (1510/1515–1562) of Zurich. Following in the footstep of Lukas Zeiner (1454–1515), von Egeri produced a vast number of panels for both private and institutional clients. Examples of his work are found in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, the Rheineck Rathaus, the Stein am Rhein Rathaus of 1542 (Hasler, 2010, pp. 343–63), the Kunsthaus in Zürich, the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, the Altertümersammlung of the Canton of Schwyz, the Swiss National Museum in Zürich, and the cloister of the monastery of Muri. In Muri the seven multi-light windows of the eastern arm (I-VII) and three on the west (II, III, and V) date between 1554 and 1558. They include complex images of saints, narrative scenes and heraldic shields, including the Standesscheiben of Zurich, Lucerne, Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalten, Glarus, and Zug. The panel showing the arms of Zurich flanked by saints Felix and Regula (East I) is recorded in a payment to von Egeri from the city of Zurich (Hasler, 2002a, pp. 108–39, 222–42, 262).

The Standesscheibe of Freiburg in Stein’s Rathaus (Hasler, 2010, pp. 356–57, no. 145) exemplifies the use of brilliant color and dramatic detail in the delineation of the figures. The figures take expressive poses, in both the central image and the narrative panel above. The architecture is exuberantly detailed and the highly skillful application of paint creates a richness of surface values. Various details in the Muri windows are also repeated in the Lucretia panel; the clothing, as seen in the almost shapeless robes of God the Father, are similar to those enveloping the Virgin and Elizabeth in the tracery of the Standesscheibe of Lucerne (East II; Hasler, 2002a, pp. 112, 230–31).

Cited in:
Getty Museum Handbook, 2007, p. 192.
Raguin, 2013, pp. 22–23, 70–71, figs. 12, 48.
Raguin, 2024, vol. 1, pp. 11, 23, 27, vol. 2, pp. 186–189.