Triptych with the Crucifixion

The city behind this Crucifixion is Utrecht. Instead of an imagined Jerusalem, the unknown painter set the cross against the church towers of 15th-century Utrecht, and he painted them accurately enough to date the panel. The Dom tower is still joined to the Gothic choir by the old Romanesque nave, a layout that existed only before 1467, and the Buurkerk stands at the point its builders had reached around 1460.

Mary and John stand beside the cross, and the skull and bones at its foot mark Golgotha, where Adam was believed to be buried. The inner wings show the Mass of Saint Gregory, with Christ appearing on the altar and showing his wounds, and Saint Christopher carrying the Christ Child, who holds the globe of the world. With the wings closed, the triptych shows an Annunciation painted in shades of grey, the angel and Mary standing on pedestals like stone statues. The Rijksmuseum bought it at an Amsterdam auction in 1887.