C. Sterling, 'La Peinture de tableaux en Bourgogne au XVe siècle' [synopsis of lecture delivered at Dijon], in Annales de Bourgogne, vol. L, 197, January - March 1978, p. 9, note 4b;
C. Sterling, "Carnet bourguignon," in L'Oeil, 413, December 1989, pp. 30-31, 33 and note 14, reproduced in color pp. 32 (triptych, opene𒊎d), p. 33 (triptych, with wings closed), and cover (detail of central panel).

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This Triptych is probably on oak panels, which have in general remained stable, with a few minor old cracks. The paint is naturally liable to react to changes of atmosphere and there are some recent blisters where the wood is moving at the moment, mainly in the lower part of the central panel. However clearly the paint surface has remained largely stable in general across the painting over centuries. The central panel is made up of three pieces. There is one later cross bar behind and one fairly old supporting vertical strut behind a crack running up from the left base through the knee and psalter of the kneeling friar to the jaw of the second friar behind him. One of the two joints runs up nearby, with quite a narrow line of retouching, through the tonsure of the next friar and the fingers of the preacher. The second joint crosses the cheek of the third kneeling friar from the right. Any movement seems to have occurred in the lower part of the panel, with one or two narrow slanting cracks near the psalter at left centre and some retouched losses in the psalter itself. Another line of retouching crosses the lower drapery in the centre with one also by the lower right edge. It is in these areas that a few recently raised flakes have been consolidated with wax and resin, and one or two are still loose. The lower half of the right edge has rather wider retouching, including part of the side of the face on the right, and the two raised praying hands have little lines of retouching crossing the fingers. The restoration is fairly recent, and is starting to slightly discolour in places, with some older retouching left. The upper part of the painting has remarkably little retouching, with a slightly rubbed place strengthened in one of the columns behind but the gentle brushwork is finely intact and unworn almost throughout, apart from some wear in the green of the landscape around the profile on the right. There is a fine even craquelure. The panel on the left with the miracle of the mule has one long crack running up the right side through the back of the mule to the right edge at the forehead of the blue capped figure, with a continuing little band of retouching up the edge just into the pink architecture behind. Brief curving cracks have also been retouched in the cheek and eye of the red gowned figure and in the upper face of the green capped man behind him. The lower left edge also has a certain amount of retouching with a rather wider patch in the lower left corner. St Anrhony's drapery has a single retouching near his cross and rather more around the hooves of the mule. There are pentimenti in many places, with earlier ideas for the architecture emerging through the naturally increased transparency of the paint. Occasional retouchings in the background, for instance on the parapet of the bridge, are minor interruptions in the beautifully clear and luminous quality of the paint. The right panel with the miracle of the fishes has one joint at the left side. Another vertical crack runs parallel just to the right of St. Anthony's head. A short line of retouching crosses the landscape at the bank of the water, and the green lower down is slightly thin in places, with a little strengthening along the green bank jutting out at the right edge and around the cross. The lower folds of the habit are also slightly strengthened, as is the green at the lower left edge and the water at the lower right edge, with one or two brief horizontal lines of retouching across the fishes. The tranquil Burgundian landscape is nevertheless in beautiful condition generally. The grisaille reverses of the wings are well preserved generally, with the single joint mentioned above running through the pair on the right, but the crack visible in the miracle of the fishes only affects St Matthew, who is the only evangelist to be quite worn in places with some discoloured older strengthening retouching in the head and elsewhere. There is one horizontal retouching across the lower robes of St. Luke and a touch or two higher up in his drapery as well as in the lower corner by his ox. The dark backgrounds also sometimes have strengthening strokes, but the rapid fresh brushwork if the figures themselves are largely beautifully intact. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

In several of its details, and as pointed out by Charles Sterling in his 1989 article in L'Oeil (see Literature), this intact triptych recalls other Burgundian panels of the 1480s and 1490s. In particular, the urban landscape behind the protagonists in the Miracle of the Mule, is remarkably similar to those in two other panels; the landscape behind the Circumcision from the retable de Semur-en-Auxois (in the Musée Municipal de Semur-en-Auxois; coincidentally it, like the present lot, is exactly 176 cm in height);¹ and the townscape behind the Virgin and child in the panel in the Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina.²  Sterling also points to the distinct similarities between the two Christ childs in the Miracle of the Mule and both the Circumcision and Adoration panels of the Semur retable. Dr. Lorne Campbell, to whom we are grateful and who also believes this triptych's origins to be Burgundian, has pointed to a connection, notably in the left hand wing, with the Retable de Saint George, on deposit at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.³  Dr. Campbell has also proposed a connection with the work of Simon Marmion, especially in the landscape behind the Miracle of the fishes and in the stiffness and straight contour lines of the figures. It is of course eminently possible, and even likely, that an artist trained by Marmion in Amiens might have gone to work in Dijon and its surrounds.

Regarding the likely commission or purpose of these works, Sterling has suggested that the Semur retable was executed for a Benedictine monastery near Semur, given the presence of the hooded Benedictine monk in the background of the Adoration panel. For the present lot, Sterling hypothesises a commission from the Franciscan Couvent de la Cordell♈e in l'Isle-sur-Serein, some twenty-five kilometres from Semur-en-Auxois. Sterling proposes a date of execution for this and the above mentioned panels of circ🅘a 1485-90.

The Duchy of Burgundy had been closely linked to Flanders, both politically and artistically, since King Charles V of France gave it to his brother Philip the Bold in 1363. The duchy had passed into the French crown on the death of the last Capetian duke of Burgundy, Philippe de Rouvres, in 1361. Philip the Bold acquired the counties of Flanders, Artois, Rethel, and Nevers through his marriage to Margaret of Flanders (1350-1405) who, by 1384, had inherited everything from her father, Louis de Mâle, Count of Flanders. Henceforth the artistic emphasis of the Burgundians shifted from their capital, Dijon, to their newly acquired towns in the north, such as Bruges and Ghent and indeed Charles the Bold (1433-1477), Philip the Bold's grandson, established the seat of government in Mechelen in the middle of the 15^th century. It is thus that artists in Burgundian towns quickly adapted their style to that of the masters of the so-called northern Renaissance, whose influence in the present work is palpable, recalling in particular Rogier van der Weyden who had indeed depicted Philip the Good and his Court for the frontispiece of the Chronicles of Hainault in 1448.⁴

1.  Sterling, 1989, reproduced p. 27, fig. 2.
2.  Idem, reproduced p. 30, fig. 8.
3.  See La Peinture au Musée du Louvre. Ecole française, vol. I, Paris 1929, p. 11, reproduced plate 11.
4.  Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale Albert 1er, MS. 9242, fol. 1. ; see. D. de Vos, Rogier van der Weyden, Munich 1999, pp. 249-51, cat. no. 16, reproduced p. 25༺0.