THE LIFE OF THE VIRGIN ALTARPIECE

ICONOGRAPHY 

The figure of the Virgin Mary is the common nexus of all scenes. The story begins with her Birth: St. Anne is still laying in her bed surrounded by several maids, one of which holds the carefully swaddled Virgin Mary beside a fire. The Annunciation by the Archangel Gabriel in which he proclaims her transcendental role as Mother of the Messiah is the next scene in which not even a vase of lilium is missing (though some of the blooms are missing today) and reference is made to a thoroughly domestic environment. In the scene of the Birth, complete with a traditionally Flemish manger, the figure of the Virgin Mary is posed in adoration whilst an angel exhibits the Holy Infant on a cloth in a somewhat unusual variation on the same subject. The group is completed with the side reliefs of the Epiphany containing barely the main characters of the story in a very balanced composition.

Narration ends with the centre section and the scene of the Lamentation over the Body of Christ that serves to further emphasise the suffering and anguish of the Virgin surrounded by half a dozen people as she cradles the body of her Son and gently raises one corner of her coif.