The history of this picture is a strange one. It was painted early in the fifteen hundreds for John des Trompes, who at that time was city treasurer, probably for his private oratory; later on, in 1520, it was presented by his heirs to the Guild of Advocates, and placed over the altar of their chantry in the crypt of St. Basil in the Bourg. A coat of black distemper inscribed with the Ten Commandments saved it from the fury of the Calvinists in 1579. Carried off by the French in 1794, it remained in Paris until 1815, when it was at last sent back to Bruges and placed in the City Gallery, where it still remains. It hangs alongside of David's other pictures, is in striking contrast to them, and as a work of art their inferior. The grouping is not happy. Two of the three principal figures in the central panel are decidedly weak, and those in the distance are for the most part stumpy and graceless. On the other hand, the figure of the kneeling angel who holds our Lord's garments is singularly beautiful. His sweet, placid face might have been drawn by Memlinc and his glorious vesture by John van Eyck. The landscape setting is the most interesting portion of this panel, and in all probability it is not David's work. Mr. Weale thinks that Joachim Patenier may have painted it, and Jules Helbig is of the same opinion. 'Nothing,' says Mr. Weale, 'can well be finer than this portion of the picture; the trees, vigorously painted and finished with wonderful minuteness, have evidently been studied individually from nature.... Between their trunks we get glimpses of real distant landscape. The herbage, lilies, mallows, violets, and other flowers in the immediate front have never been more admirably reproduced by the art of the painter.... The transparency of the water, the reflection of surrounding objects and the shadows on its surface are faithfully rendered. The bedding of the rocks too is imitated with perfect truth. The colouring of all this portion is so remarkably bright and lovely that the faults of the composition are not at first noticed.'