Three Acts of Mercy: Giving the Thirsty to drink, Visiting the Sick and Sheltering Strangers

Bernard van Orley (c.1488-1541) was the leading painter in Brussels and served as court painter to the Habsburg governors of the Netherlands, Margaret of Austria and later Mary of Hungary. His works of mercy triptych or panel belonged to a specifically Netherlandish tradition of depicting the corporal works of mercy as a demonstration of Christian charity — subjects that were both devotional and socially useful, providing models of behavior for the wealthy patrons who commissioned such images. Van Orley's position at the Habsburg court gave him access to the most sophisticated Italianizing influences in the North, and his works reflect an unusual synthesis of Flemish pictorial tradition with Italian Renaissance spatial organization.

Van Orley's panel technique combines precise Flemish attention to surface texture and material description with an Italianate spatial organization that gives his multi-figure compositions greater architectural depth than his purely Flemish predecessors. The works of mercy subjects require careful differentiation of the givers and receivers of charity across a complex figure arrangement.