FRANCKE, MEISTER, German painter, active in Ham burg during the first half of the 15th century. His name occurs in a contract with the travellers to England, dated 1424, in which the artist undertakes to paint an altarpiece for a chapel in the church of St. John at Hamburg. Nine separate portions of this work are now in the museum at Hamburg. Two represent scenes from the life of Thomas of Canterbury, and seven scenes from the life of Christ, including a fragment of "the Crucifixion." Besides these, but few pictures can with certainty be ascribed to him. One of these is the "Christ as the Man of Sorrows" in the museum at Leipzig, an early work, and another is a later representation of the same subject in the museum at Hamburg. Meister Francke's style, though doubtless the product of the art of his time, is that of a strong personality; and all attempts to relate it to other schools have failed. With feeling for the decora tive value of colour and for two dimensional design he combined a realistic rendering of detail and a somewhat exaggerated expres sion of emotions. To judge from numerous altarpieces in the north of Germany, which recall his style, his influence must have been widespread.
See A. Lichtwark, Meister Francke (Hamburg, 1899).