Two panels from a triptych: Golgotha and The Last Judgement

Jan van Eyck

Circa 1430

Oil on canvas (transferred from panel)

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The celebrated side panels of the "Tatishchev Triptych", the central part of which (now lost) depicted The Adoration of the Magi, was acquired in Spain by the Russian envoy Dmitry Tatishchev. The altar-piece is among the early works by Jan van Eyck, one of the founding-fathers of oil painting in European art. After the sale of the Annunciation and the panels of the "Tatishchev Triptych", Russia was left without a single work by the great master.