courtiers of the Philip the Good; all are wearing 15th century Flemish dress. The right panel shows the arrival of the three Magi in Bethlehem, bearing gifts; they kneel facing towards the central panel to observe a vision of an infant Christ Child. The side panels of the altarpiece would only be opened to reveal the brightly coloured images inside for church services at the weekend and on other special occasions. Most of the time the doors were closed, concealing the main images within. The outside surfaces of the side panels were decorated by an unknown artist with a grisaille of the Annunciation, with the Virgin Mary to the left, with a red curtain and a vase with a symbolic lily, and the Angel Gabriel to the right with a speech scroll bearing the words "AVE GRAZIA PLENA" (Latin: "Hail [Mary] full of grace"). As a result, the triptych has four Annunciation scenes: one to Mary on the outside, and three inside: one to Augustus, one to the Magi, and one to the shepherds. The middle panel measures . The left panel measures , and the right panel is fractionally smaller, measuring . Commission The work may have been donated by Pieter Bladelin (c. 1410-72), treasurer of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, as the altarpiece for the new town church of Saints Peter and Paul in Middelburg in Flanders. Bladelin founded the town in 1450 and devoted much effort to its construction as a personal project. The church was consecrated by the French bishop Jean Chevrot shortly before the bishop's death in 1460. However, there is only a single donor portrait, a man dressed in black with a fur-trimmed cloak and pointed wooden sandals, and it would have been more usual for Bladelin to be accompanied by his wife, Margerite van de Vageviere, leading to some doubt about the identity of the donor. The castle depicted in the middle panel is thought to that in Middelburg. It has been in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, since 1834. References Early Netherlandish Triptychs, Volume 13 of California studies in the history of art, Shirley Neilsen Blum, University of California Press, 1969, p. 17-27 Der Middelburger Altar (Bladelin-Altar), Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Paintings by Rogier van der Weyden 1450s paintings Triptychs Nativity of Jesus in art Paintings in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin Paintings depicting the Annunciation