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
Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents as a journeyman painter. They were created either as pendants, that is conceived as a pair and intended to hang alongside each other, or diptych wings. However this formation may have been a later conception; Barbara's portrait seems to have been executed some time after her husband's and it is unusual for a husband to be placed to the viewer's right in paired panels. His father's panel is considered the superior work and has been described as one of Dürer's most exact and honest portraits. They are among four paintings or drawings Dürer made of his parents, each of which