GOSSART, Jan
(b. ca. 1478, Maubeuge, d. 1532, Middelburg)

Two Wings from a Triptych (interior)

1521
Oil on panel, 120 x 47 cm (each wing)
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio

These wings representing the Annunciation on the exterior and Sts John the Baptist and Peter on the interior belonged to a triptych. Although the panels are recorded by 1641 in the chapel devoted to the Virgin of the Pietà founded by Pedro Salamanca in the Augustinian church in Bruges, there is no irrefutable evidence that Salamanca commissioned them from Gossart or for this chapel. The central panel of the triptych is lost, its theme is not known. The missing piece could be even a sculpted corpus instead of a painting.

The signed and dated altarpiece wings are remarkable for their striking contrast of the late High Gothic mode with the Italian Renaissance style of architecture.