Stories of St. Nicholas. Saint Nicholas presenting Gifts to Three Pool girls

This panel by Agnolo Gaddi depicts Saint Nicholas secretly delivering bags of gold to three impoverished young women, saving them from lives of disgrace — the legend that ultimately gave rise to the figure of Santa Claus. Painted around 1394, it forms a companion piece to other Nicholas narrative panels by Gaddi in the Bavarian State Painting Collections. The story of Nicholas's nocturnal charity was among the most beloved hagiographic tales in medieval Europe, frequently depicted in Gothic altarpiece cycles.

Egg tempera on panel with gold background, showing Agnolo's characteristic clarity of narrative staging. The architectural setting of the sleeping household is rendered with simplified Gothic forms, and Nicholas is depicted in the act of tossing gold through the window in a clearly legible composition.