"Adoration of the Magi"
The Adoration of the Magi is one of the few surviving early Netherlandish paintings on cloth, and its complex composition and intriguing painterly quality have long captured the attention of scholars. Elongated figures inhabit a partially enclosed space, which appears to be a once-grand columned hall now in ruins. Far to the right of center the Virgin sits on a long bed, holding the Christ Child on her lap.
At some distance from her the three Magi and Joseph look on in adoration, each exaggerated in their poses and slightly isolated from each other. From the left, a crowd pushes forward to witness the Epiphany in front of a rocky mountain landscape. In their midst a graceful greyhound peers out at the viewer. The large expanse of brown floor before them is carefully cluttered with objects: the base of a column, the eldest king’s hat, and a strange three-legged table upon which rests a bowl of milk soup, bread, a glass, a half-eaten piece of fruit, and a knife, arranged in what could be called an early still life.