Diptych triptych form, with two outer panels that could be closed across the main central representation. They are one type of the multi-panel forms of painting known as "polyptychs". The diptych was a common format in Early Netherlandish painting and depicted subjects ranging from secular portraiture to religious personages and stories. Often a portrait and a Madonna and Child had a leaf each. It was especially popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. Painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes used the form. Some modern artists have used the term in
Beaune Altarpiece different. The figures occupy distinctly separate niches and the colour schemes of the grisaille saints and donors contrast sharply. Like many mid-15th century polyptychs, the exterior panels borrow heavily from the "Ghent Altarpiece", which was completed in 1432. The combination of naturalistic donor portraits with grisaille imitation statues of saints is borrowed from that work, as is the treatment of the Annunciation. Van der Weyden used iconography in the Beaune exterior panels not found in his other works, which suggests Rolin may have commissioned the altarpiece to follow van Eyck's example. Van der Weyden was not inclined merely to imitate