Dresden Triptych

The Dresden Marie altar is a 33.1 × 27.5 cm Triptych of Jan van Eyck. The work from 1437, painted with oil on oak panel, located in the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden. It shows in the open state an enthroned Madonna and closed an Annunciation scene in grisaille.

General

Due to its small size, it would be not a ecclesiastically occupied factory, but to a private devotional image. Nevertheless, the triptych resembles his great models, this also applies to the painted backs of the wings, the show with the Annunciation, a fast motif. The work is 33.1 cm high. The wings are each 13.6 cm wide, the center image 27.5 cm. The labeled frames are obtained in the original. The inventory number of the State Art Collections in Dresden is Gal. No. 799

Wings open

The three panels show the frontal cross -section of a three-nave church interior. In the middle panel, Mary is seen with the Child Jesus, on the left wing of St Michael, and the kneeling donor. On the right part of the Saint Catherine is shown. The Madonna is dressed in a voluminous red coat, holding the naked child Jesus on her lap. Your throne stands in place of the altar. The floor is a mosaic, before the throne of a carpet is designed. Colored marble columns limits the Madonna of the other on the side wings illustrated figures from. According to medieval tradition is Van Eyck an oversized Madonna in a nave. A its previous such representations is The Madonna in the Church ( 1425, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin).

Closed wings

On the backs of the wings is painted in grisaille as Fast motif an Annunciation scene. These are trompe l'oeil representations of a angel and a Marie sculpture.