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Sacred Realm: Religious Painting
from about 1420 to 1500

The Annunciation Triptych (Merode Triptych),
ca. 1425–30
Robert Campin (ca. 1375–1444) and Assistant (possibly Rogier van der Weyden)
Oil on wood; central panel 25 1/4 x 24 7/8 in. (64.1 x 63.2), each wing 25 3/8 x 10 3/4 in. (64.5 x 27.3 cm)
The Cloisters Collection, 1956 ; 56.70

One of the most famous and most widely studied of Netherlandish paintings, this triptych was probably made for Jan Engelbrecht, a Netherlandish merchant living in Cologne. The patron, whose name means "the angel brings," is shown with his wife in the left wing, looking through an open door. His coat of arms appears in the left window of the center panel, where the angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will bear the son of God. Some of the key themes of Netherlandish painting are epitomized: the act of observing; privileged access to the sacred realm; the ability of art to give the appearance of reality to what can only be imagined.

In a novel departure from tradition, the Annunciation is imagined as taking place not in a church but in a Netherlandish house, with objects providing visual cues for devotional instruction. The lily signifies the purity of the Virgin, who is seated on the ground, reading, to suggest her humility and piety. The Virgin’s husband, Joseph, is shown diligently at work; the mousetrap displayed on the window ledge is an allusion to the cross the unborn Christ carries in the center panel (according to Saint Augustine, the cross was the mousetrap with which God caught the Devil).

The left wing was painted by an assistant, possibly the young Rogier van der Weyden, who worked in Campin’s shop from 1427 to 1432. Campin’s art has a sculptural quality that reminds us of the importance of real sculpture in the genesis of Netherlandish painting and the fact that sculpture and painting were frequently combined in altarpieces. Campin is known to have polychromed sculpture.

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