The Adoration of the Magi

This panel is only 33 centimetres high because it was made to travel. It belonged to a portable altarpiece of several hinged panels that could be folded shut and carried, and another piece of the same set, a Presentation in the Temple, is now in the Mimara Museum in Zagreb. The back, which would have shown when the panels were closed, is painted to imitate porphyry, a precious purple-red stone. The Louvre dates the work to the second quarter of the 14th century.

On the front the Virgin sits at the right under a small shelter, with the Child on her knee and Joseph close by. The eldest king kneels before them, the other two stand behind him, and their retinue waits with the horses. Gold is laid thickly into the kings' robes. The panel belonged to the Paris collector Léon Suzor, and the Louvre bought it from his heirs in 1986.