Kefermarkt Altarpiece

The winged altarpiece in the parish church of St Wolfgang at Kefermarkt was carved around 1490 to 1497 and stands about thirteen metres high in linden wood - three large standing figures in the shrine, Peter, Wolfgang and Christopher, with an openwork canopy of extraordinary fineness rising above them and carved wings either side. The carver is not known; the work is attributed on style to a master working in the Passau or Danube region. It was never painted or gilded, so the wood is bare, which is unusual and lets the carving read directly. By the 1850s it was decaying and Adalbert Stifter, the writer, then a school inspector in Upper Austria, campaigned for its restoration and oversaw the work - which is how a village altarpiece came to be nationally known.

What you actually see

• A thirteen-metre carved altar - late Gothic linden wood, about 1490.
• Unpainted wood - never gilded, so the carving is read directly.
• An openwork canopy - the tracery rising above the three standing figures.
• Stifter's rescue - the writer's 1850s campaign that saved and restored it.

When to go

All year; church opening hours apply. An hour.

Honest expectations

It is one object in a village church - a focused visit, not a day out. The church is dim and lighting the altar may require a coin box. Services take priority.

Nearby

Freistadt's walled old town is north; Linz is south.