Columba Triptych

This large triptych was made around 1450 for the church of Saint Columba in Cologne, and its middle panel would have meant something very specific there. Cologne believed it held the bones of the three kings who came to the newborn Christ, so putting the Adoration of the Magi at the centre spoke straight to the city's proudest relic. Rogier gives the oldest king kneeling in the mud before the child while the others wait their turn, everyone in the heavy, precise fabric this painter rendered better than almost anyone. Look past the figures on the right and you can see the walls of a different building from the next scene bleeding into this one, so Bethlehem and Jerusalem quietly share the same stretch of ground. On the wall behind the manger hangs a small crucifix, the ending folded into the beginning.