The painting's wings (not including the Adam and Eve panels) were pawned in 1815 by the Diocese of Ghent for the equivalent of £240. When the diocese failed to redeem them, many of them were sold by the dealer Nieuwenhuys in 1816 to the English collector Edward Solly for £4,000 in Berlin. They were sold in 1821 to the King of Prussia, Frederick William III for £16,000, an enormous sum at the time, and for many decades they were exhibited in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. The panels still in Ghent were damaged by fire in 1822, and the separately hinged Adam and Eve panels sent to a museum in Brussels.