 At an unknown point before 1811 , the original altarpiece was broken into at least three pieces , possibly due to damage , although The Magdalen fragment is in good condition . The black <unk> was likely added after the early 17th century when Netherlandish painting had fallen from favour and was <unk> . Campbell believes that after the removal of the background detail " it looked sufficiently like a genre piece to hang in a well @-@ known collection of Dutch seventeenth @-@ century paintings " . From the size of three surviving panels in relation to the drawing , it is estimated that the original was at least 1 m high by 1 @.@ 5 m wide ; the bishop and the Magdalene seem to clearly mark the horizontal <unk> , but the extent of the picture above and below the surviving elements and the drawing cannot be judged . Such a size is comparable with smaller altarpieces of the period . The background was overpainted with a thick layer of black / brown pigment until it was cleaned in 1955 ; it was only after the layer 's removal that it was linked to the upper body and head of Joseph from the Lisbon piece . These two works were not recorded in inventory until 1907 , when they appear in the collection of <unk> <unk> in <unk> , France . 
