Miraflores Altarpiece

The Miraflores Altar, also called " Triptych of Our Lady ", is a triptych by Rogier van der Weyden. It has been painted in 1450 with oil on oak. The individual panels are each 74 x 44.5 cm. The images are located in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin. The triptych was donated by the Castilian King John II the Carthusian monastery of Miraflores in Burgos. There is a slightly smaller version of the altar. The panels are in Granada ( Capilla Real) and in New York (Metropolitan Museum ). They were kept for a long time for the original; the Berlin altar was regarded as a copy of a later period. However, in 1981 performed at the Berlin Gemäldegalerie investigation revealed compelling that the Berlin altar is the original. According to the results of dendrochronology, the altar may have been painted around 1437. Investigations with the aid of infrared reflectography also showed that some find significant changes in the signing of the Berlin panels. The painter has therefore sought during the process of creation according to various scenic solutions, what a copyist would have done difficult. The panels in Granada and New York do not have these changes.

Motif

Shown are three scenes from the life of Mary. On the left panel the worship Jesus through Mary and Joseph 's watch in the middle of the Lamentation after the crucifixion. On the right panel, the appearance is Jesus after the resurrection. While the first two scenes in the New Testament find their basis, we find the source for the representation of the phenomenon in a text Meditations on vita Christi of Pseudo- Bonaventura from the 13th or 14th century. In the painted architecture that frames each panel, more episodes from the life of Mary are shown in Archivolts.