Netherlands, (c.1472-1533)
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Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi
- (1517), oil on panel
- 32.7 x 9.8 in. (83 x 25 cm.)
- Rijks Museum, Amsterdam
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Editor’s Note:
The work featured here shows the outer doors of the Triptych of the Adoration of the Magi. In its original position in an Amsterdam church during the 16th century, the triptych would have been closed most of the year, as you see it above. Only the two grisailles of St. Christopher and St. Anthony, with companion pig, on the backs of the shutters would have been visible.
The inner view of the Madonna, child and Magi was only exhibited on major feast days, briefly revealing the painting, in all its glory, to the faithful. Here is a view of the inner panel where there are, alas, no pigs.
About the Artist
Jacob Cornelisz van Oostsanen, Netherlands, (c.1472-1533). Oostsanen was a Dutch Northern Renaissance or ‘Netherlandish’ painter, also called Jacob van Amsterdam or van Oostzann. He was a designer of woodcuts and painter of portraits and religious pictures. Little is known of the life of van Oostsanen, and much of his religious work was destroyed during the Iconoclast Fury of the Reformation.