This panel featuring the Adoration of the Magi shows the Virgin Mary in a robe of gold brocade and a blue cloak sitting with the naked Christ child on her lap. A grey-haired king wearing a precious mantle of gold brocade kneels before her presenting a bowl full of golden coins to the child. Behind him stands the second king, wearing a beret on his reddish hair and holding a golden ciborium. The dark-skinned king to his right also carries a precious vessel and holds his beret in his left hand. The scene takes place in a half-open building with round arches, in which the ox and the ass appear in the background.

At the bottom left, a young man in a black cloak kneels in a praying pose with a banderole reading Miserere mei deus se[baot] (‘Have mercy on me, God Zebaoth’). The text that runs along the lower edge, written in Lower German, calls on the reader to commemorate the commissioner in his or her prayers: ‘biddet got vor gert alant, dat en got gnedich’ (‘Pray to God in favour of Gert Alant, that God [may be] merciful on him’). The coat of arms in the centre, which displays a half eagle and a crowned cod, shows that Alant was a so-called Bergenfahrer, a young merchant from one of the Hanseatic towns.

Øystein Hellesøe Brekke found the name Gerdt Alandt, who is mentioned as ‘oldermann’ at the Hanseatic kontor at Bryggen in the year 1511, in the archives of the Lübeck Bergenfahrer company. Two years later, Alandt represented the Bergen merchants at the Danish Crown. The panel is registered as originating from Holmedal, a coastal settlement north of Bergen. It is unclear how the Lübeck merchant may have been connected to this place, especially since it was forbidden for Hanseates to trade north of Bergen.

Northern Germany (Lübeck?), 1500-1520
From Holmedal (Sunnfjord), in the museum since 1835
Oak, painted
H 97 x W 95.5 x D 3.5 cm
Inv. no. MA 15