Melun Diptych Melun Diptych The Melun Diptych is a two-panel oil painting by the French court painter Jean Fouquet (1425–1480) created around 1452. The name of the diptych came from its original home in the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame in Melun. The left panel depicts Etienne Chevalier with his patron saint St. Stephen and the right panel depicts the Virgin and Christ child surrounded by cherubim. Each wooden panel measures about 93 by 85 centimeters and the two would have been hinged together at the center. The two pieces, originally a diptych, are now separated. The left panel now resides in the
St John Altarpiece (Memling) it presents a narrative, meant to emulate a vision the donors or viewers would experience when viewing the inside panels. Unlike most altarpieces of these types, Memling's fails to present a single unifying iconographical focus and is quite generalized with themes that seem unsuited for its specific location, according to Blum. She speculates the donors may have chosen the specific iconography, which "celebrated intercessory saints on the interior". It is an unusual painting in that it seems to "have served a double function: that of personal propitiation and that of public altarpiece, which portrayed the role of the religious community