Trinity Altarpiece

Very little Scottish religious art survived the Reformation of 1560, when reformers stripped and smashed the country's churches. These panels are the great exception. They were commissioned around 1478 for the Holy Trinity church in Edinburgh by its provost, Edward Bonkil, whose merchant family traded with Bruges, which is how the job reached one of the finest painters in Flanders, Hugo van der Goes. The wings show King James III of Scotland kneeling with his son, and Bonkil himself before a vision of the Trinity, his hands pressed together while two angels work an organ beside him. The central panel, probably a Virgin and Child, is lost, perhaps destroyed in 1560. The set belongs to the Royal Collection and hangs on loan in Edinburgh.