Das Gastmahl des Pharisäers Simon (Magdalena salbt Christi Füße)

Pieter Coecke van Aelst was an Antwerp painter, architect, and designer who brought Italian Renaissance architectural vocabulary to northern Europe through his tapestry designs and woodcut series on Turkish customs. His Feast of Simon — the episode where Mary Magdalene anoints Christ's feet at the Pharisee's table — was a subject requiring architectural staging, and Coecke's Italian training allowed him to set the scene within a convincingly classical interior. The painting belongs to his mature Antwerp period when Italian influence on his figure types and architecture was at its most integrated.

Coecke van Aelst stages the feast within a deep classical hall whose pilasters, coffered ceiling, and tiled floor show the systematic Italianate spatial organisation he had absorbed from study in Rome. The figures are in the Flemish Mannerist idiom — elongated, with complex drapery folds — set against architecture that recalls Raphael's Vatican interiors.