Werl Triptych

The right-hand wing depicts a seated, pious Saint Barbara, who is shown engrossed in her reading of a bound and gilded holy book, seated in front of a warm, open fire which lights the room with a golden glow. The left wing has a donor portrait of Heinrich von Werl, who kneels in prayer in the company of John the Baptist facing the missing devotional centre-panel scene, which is lost and unrecorded. The two extant panels are in Madrid and renowned for their complex treatment of both light and form. The panels became influential on other artists from the mid-15th until the early 16th century, after when Early Netherlandish painting fell out of favour until it was rediscovered in the early 19th century.

From an inscription in the left wing, the panels are known to have been commissioned by Heinrich von Werl, the provincial head of Cologne, in 1438. He is shown in the left wing kneeling in devotion alongside Saint John the Baptist. This panel contains a number of elements indebted to Jan van Eyck, notably the convex mirror in the midground, which as with the 1434 Arnolfini Portrait, reflects the scene back at the viewer.