Meister der von Carbenschen Gedächtnisstiftung (attr.) (Carben-Meister; Wilhelm von Arborch ?), worked at Cologne, circa 1500-1530 H. 90 cm A Female Saint or Virgin of the Annunciation. Oakwood, craved with deeply hollowed back and closed with a curved oak board. Right hand added. Attribute is missing. Surface with various shrinkage cracks. Base area with minor damage. Old German Aristocratic property, in the family since the late 19th century, Rimburg Castle near Aachen. Very likely acquired in the late 19th century by the art collector and owner of the castle Johanna von Brauchitsch (nee Weckbecker). As our "female saint" is carved in full round, although hollowed out, but closed again with the so-called locking board, we can assume that she stood free in the church, visible all around and was not set up in an altarpiece. Only her right hand (authentically supplemented) could have held or carried an object; the left hand reaches into the opened end of the shawl - there is no room for elaborate attributes. So it may be the figure of Mary of an Annunciation Group. In his essay on the inventory of late medieval sculptures in the Schnütgen Museum (lit., 2.), Reinhard Karrenbrock also researches about the development and continuation of a special Cologne figure style from the second half of the 15th century to the thirties and forties of the 16th century - from Meister Tilman to the Carben-Meister and to the carver of the Palenberg Madonna, around 1520 (a late, almost “Baroque” work of this group of works from the parish church of S. Theresia in Palenberg, see Abb./fig. 3) and the author of the two famous, almost life-size "Angels with Banners" (Museum Schnütgen, see Abb./fig. 2), around 1530. This development was obviously style-defining for an entire region. The author also points out our figure, who he probably only knows from an old black/white photo by Paul Clemen, 1912 (Lit. 1) (see Abb./fig. 1) "A particularly appealing work of this style context, which stands out in its quality from the other works of this group, forms a Female Saint who was kept at Rimburg Castle near Aachen at the beginning of the 20th century, whose current location is unknown… ”. It is rather seldom that sculptures from this period can be assigned relatively safely to a workshop group or even to an archivally guaranteed master. In our case, we can understand this impressive figure, which is well preserved in its carving substance, as an illuminating link in a chain of development in Cologne's late Gothic carving workshops. Lit. : 1. Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz; Paul Clemens, Die Kunstdenkmäler der Landkreise Aachen und Eupen, 1912, p. 168 ff., fig. 145; 2. Museum Schnütgen; Reinhard Karrenbrock, Die Holzskulpturen des Mittelalters, II,1, 1400-1540, Köln 2001, p. 52 ff.