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The two wings represent the donors of a triptych, the central panel of which, conserved at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, shows a Virgin and Child. Probably man and wife, they are kneeling on "prie-dieus". She is looking to the left and has her hands joined, he is looking at the viewer and is holding a psalter. The couple is richly dressed - a distinctive sign of its high social position - but also soberly. The donatrix is enveloped in a white veil and wears a black, lined robe with red braiding and sleeves, revealing a slightly transparent chemisette, and with a fur thrown over her shoulders. The donor wears a fur-lined coat, a brown jacket and a white shirt with a finely embroidered collar.
The décor is severe and classical. The disparity of architecture and the very different attitudes of the two donors is explained by the unequal relationship of the couple with the Virgin, represented on the central panel. The woman was originally in the same space as the Mother and Child, kneeling directly in front of them. The man, on the other hand, was in an adjoining room. For this reason it has been suggested that the donor commissioned the triptych in memory of his dead young wife, depicted together with the Madonna in the Kingdom of Heaven. She is a virgo mediatrix. On the reverse of the wings, "trompe-l'oeil" labels on a marbled background carry the first verse of the 51st psalm: "Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions".
The work belongs to the very sought-after type of the devotional triptych for private use, made up of "bust" portraits, supposedly invented by Rogier van der Weyden. The extraordinary luminosity of the donors' faces and hands places these portraits among Gossart's best. The beauty of the modelling reminds us how much the artist owed, not only to antique art and to the Italian and German engravers, but also to Jan van Eyck, an artist whom he copied on several occasions, and whose extreme concern for detail he also borrowed. The triptych was painted probably between 1525 and 1532. After the death in 1524 of his main sponsor, Duke Philip of Burgundy, Gossart appears to have specialised in more standard works for a broader clientèle.
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