Dresdner Triptychon

This whole altarpiece fits in your hands. Signed and dated by Jan van Eyck in 1437, it stands only about 33 centimetres tall with its frames, three little hinged panels that fold shut like a book. That scale tells you what it was for. It was a portable altar, something a wealthy owner could carry while travelling and open to pray before wherever he happened to be. In the centre the Virgin sits enthroned with the Child inside a church; on the wings kneel the donor with the archangel Michael, and Saint Catherine reading. The coats of arms link it to the Giustiniani, a powerful merchant family of Genoa. On the frame van Eyck wrote his personal motto, ALS ICH KAN, meaning as well as I can. It is the only surviving triptych we have from his hand, still in its original frames.