The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donor

Richard de Visch van der Capelle, a canon of Saint Donatian's in Bruges, died in 1511 at over 80, and this panel probably stood on the altar of his family chapel there. That altar was dedicated to Saint Catherine, and she sits nearest the Christ Child, receiving his ring in her mystic marriage. Saint Barbara reads, with a small tower worked into her headdress, and Mary Magdalene has her pot of ointment. The canon kneels in his pale choir robe, yet the National Gallery points out that his face does not seem to have been painted from life. He may have been too old or too ill to sit, or already dead. His greyhound lies on the tiles with the family arms on its collar, and in the garden behind him an angel reaches up to pick grapes.