Triptych

c. 1410–1420

This exceptional triptych, which had remained unknown until 2012 when it was shown at the The Road to Van Eyck exhibition, can be considered as an outstanding testimony of the Low-Countries pre-Eyckian art. It’s cohesive unity hints to the fact that the three panels were surely from a single hand. Furthermore, the artist probably came from Bruges, the cradle of the Flemish Primitive School and an important center of artistic patronage and progress. The central panel represents a rarely painted scene of the Anointing of the dead Christ, and this extraordinary iconography seem to be an unicum among the surviving stock of early Netherland painting. The elegant side panels portray two saints standing in chapel-like architectures. On the left wing, surprised from his meditation by a bookstands, hermit Anthony looks up at Christ. On the right side wing, John the Baptist faces the viewer and points at the dead messiah on his right.