Workshop of Dirk Bouts, 'The Virgin and Child with Saint Peter and Saint Paul', probably 1460s

The Virgin Mary sits on a marble throne with a luxurious material stretched across it – a cloth of honour, something often hung behind medieval royalty. She reaches out to touch a book with her right hand, while balancing the Christ Child on her left knee.

Two saints stand with them, and particular symbols tell us who they are. On the Virgin’s right is Saint Peter, a key peeping out from beneath his green robe: according to the Bible, Christ said to Peter, ‘I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven’ (Matthew 16: 19). He holds an open illuminated manuscript up to the Virgin, which she touches gently. We can make out the blue initials and red headings, but the text is no longer legible.

On the Virgin’s left is Saint Paul, the sword by which he was martyred leaning against the arch behind him. He holds out a delicate flower to Christ: a carnation. Carnations or pinks were known in northern Europe as ‘nail flowers’ because their scent resembles cloves, which are shaped like the nails driven into Christ’s body when he was crucified. So this little flower may allude to the Passion.

Not everything is so easily explained. It is difficult to make sense of the architecture, but the Gothic arches, the stained glass in the windows and the marble floor all suggest that the building is meant to be a church or chapel. And the two saints are smaller than the Virgin, which is unusual for Bouts: he didn’t usually draw figures on different scales.

These details suggest that this was not made by Bouts himself, but by a less skilled artist in his workshop. They seem to have had access to other paintings and designs by Bouts and his workshop, where elements of this scene pop up. Look at the feet of the infant Christ here, for example – they are very like his feet in Bouts’s Virgin and Child. So this was perhaps painted for a client who had looked through patterns in Bouts’s workshop and specified exactly what he wanted. Netherlandish painting was in high demand across Europe and the commissioner may have been Italian: the panel was in Bologna in the eighteenth century and a closely related painting is still in a collection in Sicily.