Christ on the Cross between the Virgin, Saint John and Two Donors

This early Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, and two donors at the Courtauld Gallery dates to around 1490, making it among Metsys’s earliest known works. The inclusion of donor portraits—the patrons who commissioned the painting kneeling in prayer at the foot of the cross—follows a tradition established by Jan van Eyck and continued throughout Netherlandish art. The donors’ fashionable dress helps date the panel to the late fifteenth century.

The early work shows Metsys still working within the conventions of fifteenth-century Netherlandish painting, with crisp linear definition and bright, clear colors. The donor portraits demonstrate his natural gift for capturing individual likenesses.