La Présentation au Temple

Inside an octagonal temple, the Virgin lifts the infant Christ across the altar toward the aged Simeon, whose cloth-wrapped hands reach out to receive him, while the prophetess Anna stands behind the priest in her turban and Joseph waits at the left holding the turtledove for the purification offering; the carved capitals carry scenes of the Creation and the windows the story of Noah. The panel is one of the rare surviving pieces of the altarpiece that Jacques Daret, trained in Tournai in the workshop of Robert Campin beside Rogier van der Weyden, painted for the abbey of Saint-Vaast at Arras in 1434–1435, and it shows the enamel-bright colour and sculptural drapery of the first generation of Netherlandish painting. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris.