#magi

This one's round — a tondo — and from what I can find, historians don't fully agree who painted most of it: it's catalogued under one name, but they think a second painter, plus workshop hands, did a lot of the actual work. It's been called the 'Cook Tondo' for decades, after a private collector, even though it left his collection a long time ago.

This one's part of a set — seven small panels showing scenes from the life of Christ, according to the Met, though nobody's fully sure which church they were first painted for.

The gold leaf here is heavier than usual for Bosch, from what I can tell — most of his other work skips it.

Wikipedia says the Magi were basically local celebrities in Florence — there was a confraternity dedicated to them that restaged the wise men's journey through the city every five years. This one's thought to date from a stretch when the painter was actually in Rome, working on the Sistine Chapel at the same time, which is a strange thing to picture.

This one's part of a set — seven small panels showing scenes from the life of Christ, according to the Met, though nobody's fully sure which church they were first painted for.