They were a commission from the merchant Hans Oberried, a native of Freiburg, at the time a town councillor of Basel, in which town he had been resident for nearly thirty years, but who, as an adherent of the Catholic party, was dismissed from office during the religious disturbances of 1529. He therefore renounced his citizenship, and, like Erasmus and Amerbach, left the town and returned to Freiburg, where members of his family still lived. It has been suggested that he ordered this altar-piece of Holbein for presentation to the church of the Carthusian Monastery in Basel, in which a near relative of his wife’s, Hieronymus Tschekkenbürlin, was prior. This monastery was in Little Basel, where the Catholic party were in the ascendant, so that some of their pictures and church ornaments were saved from the fury of the mob. Oberried may, therefore, have succeeded in carrying off the two panels with him, though forced to leave the centre one behind, as too big for concealment. His name occurs on one occasion in the Basel town records in connection with Holbein. On September 14, 1521, the Council paid to him a sum of money due to the painter—probably in connection with the Town Hall wall-paintings—which was possibly in discharge of a debt which the councillor had failed to obtain from the artist.[206] Oberried died in the same year as the painter, 1543, but the two panels do not appear to have been placed in the chapel of the minster until October 17, 1554, on which day the altar over which they hang was consecrated. With the exception of two short intervals, they have remained ever since in Freiburg. During the Thirty Years War they were sent to Schaffhausen for safety. From there the Elector Maximilian I of Bavaria had them brought to Munich for his inspection, and later on they were taken to Ratisbon, in order to be shown to the Emperor Ferdinand III. In 1796 they were carried away by the French, but were returned from Colmar in 1808.[207] They were then replaced over the altar of the University Chapel in the choir of the minster, where they still remain, the only church paintings by Holbein still to be found hanging within the walls of a consecrated building. About the time of their return from France they appear to have undergone a severe restoration. [Sidenote: “PASSION OF CHRIST” ALTAR-PIECE]