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This double-sided panel shows on one side the martyrdom of St Lawrence and on the other a woman offering drink to a bedridden man. The work is a fragment of an altarpiece shutter, in which the St Lawrence scene on gold ground would have been oriented to the interior, visible in the altarpiece's open state.
Three other double-sided panels were recognized as part of the same altarpiece. These panels also depict acts of mercy on the exterior, namely Beheading of John the Baptist (interior) and Providing Shelter to Strangers (exterior) and Feast of Herod (interior) and Feeding the Hungry (exterior), both panels in the Stadtmuseum Simeonstift, Trier, as well as St Lawrence before the Emperor (interior) and Clothing the Naked (exterior) in a private collection. The dismantled altarpiece was attributed to an unknown master in Salzburg named after this ensemble as Master of the Acts of Mercy.
A plausible reconstruction assumes a total of six acts of mercy, and arranges the wing scenes in two tall columns, displaying the Acts of Mercy in the closed state, and three scenes each from the lives of St John the Baptist and St Lawrence in the open state. It is suggested that two missing acts, tending the sick and visiting the imprisoned were shown at the top of the wings. The centre of the altarpiece was probably a painted or a sculpted shrine.
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