Michel Erhart

(b ?1440-45; d Ulm, after 8 Dec 1522). He is recorded in Ulm from 1469, having probably spent part of his apprenticeship in the Netherlands. By 1474 he was commissioned to carve the greater part of the sculptures for the high altar retable in the Minster, one of the most prestigious contracts in 15th-century Ulm. His reputation also spread beyond the city: he received commissions from such important churches as SS Ulrich and Afra Abbey, Augsburg, and Weingarten Abbey. Towards the end of the century he seems to have been in charge of one of the largest sculpture workshops in southern Germany, and his activities ranged as far as Franconia and Switzerland. When during 1516-17 the Ulm authorities erected a gigantic Mount of Olives (destr. 1807; fragments in Ulm, Ulm. Mus.) with over-life-size figures and a baldacchino more than 6 m high, Michel and Bernhard were commissioned to supply numerous stone sculptures. Most of Erhart's documented works have disappeared.

Part of the Erhart family

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