Beautiful cards

Ellen has received an amazing birthday gift from Bonnie Hull: a box full of postcards, much to Ellen's delight. Her favorite thing! We were going through them tonight and marveling at them. They are old but in beautiful condition. Ellen handed me one of a painting, and said, "Can you identify these figures?" I couldn't, so I turned to my new toy: Google Chrome. Here is the card:

I put the card out into the ether and it proved to be one panel of a triptych, specifically "The Portinari Altarpiece or Portinari Triptych (c. 1475), an oil on wood triptych painting by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes, commissioned by Tommaso Portinari, representing the Adoration of the Shepherds. It is in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy. This altarpiece is filled with figures and religious symbols. Of all the late fifteenth century Flemish artworks, this painting is said to be the most studied." It is, in fact, a beautiful work of art. I was unfamiliar with it until now. So I thought I would share it. Here is the full work:

The figures in the left panel are St. Anthony (in black) and St. Thomas (in red). The small figure in the lower right is the patron, and the even smaller figures on the lower left are his children. Here is a clearer picture of the left panel:

Left panel with St, Anthony, St. Thomas, and patron, Tommaso Portinari and his sons, Antonio and Pigello. In the background, above St. Anthony's head, one can see Mary and Joseph and a donkey, making their way to Bethlehem. It was common in triptychs such as this to create a kind of narrative by depicting characters in more than one place. So Mary and Joseph are on their way in the left panel, and in the central panel they are watcching over the newborn baby Jesus. The shepherds are adoring the child in the foreground, but in the background, in an earlier scene, the angels appear to them in the fields announcing Jesus' birth. Here are some close-ups, which make details clearer:

Left panel details

Central panel details ***************************************************************** The right panel shows Tomasso's wife Maria di Francesco Baroncelli, with their daughter Margarita, with Mary Magdalen (with the pot of ointment) and Saint Margaret (with the book and the dragon):

Thank you, Bonnie, for the cards and for this one in particular!