This monumental painting is a rare survival from the period as so much was lost during the iconoclastic crisis of the 1560s. In general style, the painting is rather backward looking, deriving from the gravity of the late work of Gerard David (c.1460-1523) working in Bruges in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. Although there has been a suggestion, at the time of the Heim exhibition of 1990, that there was an element of collaboration with Anton Claeissens, the painting appears sufficiently consistent to be by one hand. The large scale suggests that it was intended as a major altarpiece, but the lack of provenance means that there is no firm evidence as to its original location, although it is said to have come from a Monastery in France.

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