Altarpiece unclear. Altarpieces can still broadly be divided into two types, the "reredos", which signifies a large and often complex wooden or stone altarpiece, and the "retable", an altarpiece with panels either painted or with reliefs. Retables are placed directly on the altar or on a surface behind it; a reredos typically rises from the floor. Retable-type altarpieces are often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. The panels can also display reliefs or sculpture in the round, either polychrome or un-painted. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for
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