Master Theodoric

Master Theodoric (active mid-14th century). Bohemian painter. He is first certainly documented in 1359, when he is described as court painter to the Emperor Charles IV in Prague. However, he may well be identical with a Theodoric who in 1348 became first head of the newly founded painters' guild in Prague. In 1367 he was rewarded for his only documented work—the extraordinarily rich decoration of the chapel of the Holy Cross in Karlstein Castle near Prague. The decoration features more than 100 panels of saints, prophets, and angels, most of them still in situ, together with frescos and coloured stone inlays. His figures are rather heavy in form but softly modelled, and he is regarded as one of the originators of the ‘Soft Style’ that was characteristic of much central European painting in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.