Triptych: The Crucifixion Flanked by the Kneeling Donor and His Wife

This triptych altarpiece is thought to be a work of Cleve's later period. The center panel shows the Crucifixion backed by a typically detailed Flemish landscape, with the donors of the work, kneeling, shown in the side panels. The pervasive use of richly visionary craggy rocks reminiscent of Patinir and the application of overpainting, or "glacis," in the landscape areas are typical elements of 16th-century Flemish landscape painting. The rich colors seen in the soldiers and in Mary Magdalene, with her vase of ointment, are indicative of the decorative quality of religious paintings of the day. In addition to Cleve's realistic portraits, he was widely acclaimed for his large production of this type of elegant religious paintings. Another of Cleve's work of the same format and same subject is now in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, New York. This work, created with a blend of oil and tempera based pigments, is a remarkably well preserved panel painting with extremely little discoloration or flaking of pigment. The whole image is covered with a porcelain-like finish which lends a sense of transparency to the edge of the horizon line.(Source: Masterpieces of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 2009, cat. no. 10)