A Pair of Altarpiece Shutters: Portraits of Pierantonio Bandini Baroncelli and His Wife; Reverse in grisaille: The Annunciation

In the 1480s Bruges was the money capital of northern Europe, and a good number of Florentine merchants lived and traded there. One of them, Pierantonio Baroncelli, had himself and his wife, Maria Bonciani, painted onto the two wings of a small folding altarpiece, kneeling in prayer the way donors did. The wings worked like little doors. Open, they showed the couple at their devotions; closed, their outer faces together formed the Annunciation, painted in grey grisaille to look like carved stone. A Florentine family, then, chose to be remembered in the local Bruges manner rather than the one back home. The panels later travelled to Florence, and both now hang in the Uffizi.