The miracle of the flowering rod (left); the marriage of Mary and Joseph (right)

Robert Campin's panels showing the Miracle of the Flowering Rod and the Marriage of Mary and Joseph illustrate the apocryphal tradition surrounding Mary's betrothal to the carpenter of Nazareth. According to the legend, suitors brought rods to the temple, and Joseph's staff miraculously bloomed — God's sign that he was the chosen husband of the Mother of God. Campin sets these supernatural events in a contemporary Flemish interior and exterior, applying his characteristic domestic naturalism to apocryphal narrative.

The panels demonstrate Campin's mature command of interior and architectural space, with the temple setting rendered in careful perspective and the figures modeled with his characteristic sculptural solidity and material precision.