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This remarkable work which came to light recently seems to be by the same Memling follower who painted the Santa Barbara Lamentation (Museum of Art). In the larger Lamentation, however, the painter is more precise in the details than in the miniature scenes, which seem to be painted with an unruly brush. Typologically, however, everything corresponds: the rather stiff figures with wooden gestures and attitudes, the hard folds, the trees with thick burly foliage, the plump clouds with heavy lighted edges. Remarkable about this triptych is the fact that many of the little scenes have been taken from well-known Memling compositions: it is largely conceived as a pastiche of Memling fragments. From left to right and from top to bottom, the triptych contains the following scenes:
Left wing
1. Annunciation
2. Visitation
3. Nativity
4. Jesus among the Pharisees
Central panel
5. Presentation in the Temple
6. Flight into Egypt
7. Mourning Mary and Joseph
8. Flagellation
9. Carrying of the Cross
10. Crucifixion
11. Lamentation
12. Entombment
13. Circumcision
14. Mount of Olives
15. Christ at the column
16. Christ released from the Flagellation column by Mary and John
17. Crowning with Thorns
18. Mocking of Christ
19. Christ nailed to the Cross
20. Crucifixion
Right wing
21. Resurrection
22. Ascension
23. Descent of the Holy Ghost
24. Death of the Virgin.
The work is popular in conception and there is hardly any logic in the arrangement of the scenes. Following the example of contemporaneous miniature painting (Simon Bening) they are enclosed in a painted window in early Renaissance style. Only the wings are arranged in chronological order with scenes from the Childhood and scenes after the Christ's death. In the central panel, which is mainly devoted to the Passion, everything is mixed up. Spatially the artist has shown a degree of circumspection, for the scenes at the top have a very low horizon, while the lower scenes exhibit the usual foreshortening in successive plans. The conscious reference to various works by Memling (with some scenes possibly deriving from lost compositions) clearly points to a painter who had access to these works while they were still in the workshop or to whom working drawings were available. It is also remarkable that the borrowings come from late works. It can be assumed therefore that we are here dealing with a student or assistant of Memling.
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