St John Altarpiece Reed believes the similarities so pronounced that it is highly probable that the two were intended to hang together at the Miraflores monastery. St John Altarpiece The St John Altarpiece (German - "Johannesaltar", "Johannestafel" or "Johannesretabel") is a c. 1455 oil-on-oak wood panel altarpiece by the Early Netherlandish painter Rogier van der Weyden, now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The triptych is linked to the artist's earlier "Miraflores Altarpiece" in its symbolic motifs, format and intention. The panels show – from left to right – the birth of Saint John, the baptism of Christ by John in Jordan, and the beheading
Maestà The most famous example of the "Maestà" is the "Maestà with Twenty Angels and Nineteen Saints", an altarpiece comprising many individual paintings commissioned by the city of Siena in 1308 from the artist Duccio di Buoninsegna. The painting was installed in the city's cathedral on June 9, 1311. Although it took a generation for its effect truly to be felt, Duccio's "Maestà" set Italian painting on a course leading away from the hieratic representations of Byzantine art towards more direct presentations of reality. Creating this altarpiece assembled from many wood panels bonded together before painting was an arduous undertaking. The