The Adoration of the Magi: a triptych; the outer faces: the Archangel Gabriel; and the Virgin Annunciate, in sculpted niches

Named after the large panel depicting the parable of the Prodigal Son (Vienna, Kunsthistoriches Museum), the Master of the present work was identified by Hulin de Loo in 1909 (Catalogue du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Gand, Ghent, pp. 55-56). The artist ran a busy and prosperous workshop in Antwerp, working as a painter as well as a designer of tapestries and stained glass. Much of the Master’s work looks to other important figures painting in the city during the mid-16th century, like Pieter Coecke van Aelst, Pieter Aertsen and Frans Floris. This small devotional triptych, probably designed for a private chapel, amply demonstrates the influence of these artists, particularly Coecke van Aelst; indeed the Holy Family and a kneeling king in the central panel, with the other Magi each occupying a wing, was a type invented and popularised by his workshop. Though van Aelst’s format is employed, the present work retains much of the Master of the Prodigal Son’s own characteristic style. The small faces, with pointed chins and eyes placed close together, the large hands with defined finger nails and the figures walking as if ‘on tiptoe’, are features which typify the Master’s style in our panel (L. Campbell, The Sixteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings with French Paintings before 1600, London, 2014, p. 542). The semi-grisaille Annunciation on the exterior of the wings, inscribed with the famous greeting of the Archangel Gabriel, was a common feature of triptychs of this scale from the late 15th century onwards, where flesh tones were used for faces and hands to imbue them with a softer, more naturalistic quality (a particularly successful example of this semi-grisaille style is Gerard David’s Annunciation of c. 1510, Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1975.1.120).

We are grateful to Peter van den Brink for confirming the attribution after inspection of the original.