Left wing of St. Laurenz triptych - 6 Apostles and the donor Gerhard von Wesel (1443-1510) with his third wife Adelheid Bischof

Derick Baegert's Left Wing of the Saint Laurenz Triptych with Six Apostles belongs to this Wesel-based painter's most significant surviving work. Baegert, working in the lower Rhine region, developed a figure style that combined the emotional intensity of German devotional painting with awareness of Flemish compositional refinement, creating altarpieces that served the devotional culture of the prosperous Rhine valley towns. The six apostles crowded into the wing panel create a compelling visual effect of sacred assembly, each figure individualized within the group format that allowed display of multiple character types.

Baegert's style combines the precise detail of Netherlandish painting with the more angular, expressive quality of lower Rhenish art, with careful differentiation between the naturalistic donor portraits and the more idealized apostle figures.