Virgin Mary

    This painting is a very rare surviving example of distemper, a water-based medium, on canvas.
    The artist was active both in his native Ghent, in modern Belgium, and at the refined court of Urbino in Italy.
    Three Black figures in the composition - the African king, the servant handing him his gift, and an observer in the crowd - reflect the increasing presence of Black individuals in western Europe, but their strikingly similar appearance raises the question of whether they derive from a single model or, instead, were based on an idealized type.

The Crucifixion

    This Crucifixion shares a trait with other works of the so-called courtly (or International) style that prevailed in Europe in the years around 1400.
    The artist was one of the foremost painters in northwest Germany.
    The main panel is still in the Neustädter Marienkirche in Bielefeld, Westphalia.

The Flagellation; (reverse) The Madonna of Mercy

    Romanino painted this expressive depiction of the flagellation of Christ as a processional banner for a confraternity, or lay religious group, in Brescia, a city not far from Milan.
    Contemporary German prints, which circulated widely in northern Italy, inspired its dramatically compressed composition and the vehemence of the brutish executioners.
    Caravaggio, the groundbreaking artist of the next generation, spent his formative years in the region and almost certainly knew and admired this painting.