Altarpiece from Thuison-les-Abbeville: The Ascension

This panel was once part of the altarpiece decorating the high altar of the Carthusian monastery at Thuison, outside of Abbeville in northern France. Four saints standing in niches were painted on the exterior of the altarpiece’s wings. When the wings were open, the interior of the altarpiece told the story of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection through painted narratives on the inside of the wings and painted and gilded carvings in the central shrine whose central subject was undoubtedly the Crucifixion. The carvings have not survived. The fronts and backs of the wings were sawn apart in the mid 19th century; all the wing panels except one narrative (The Entry into Jerusalem, Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) are in the Art Institute.

A rich border region north of Paris, Picardy was a possession of the Burgundian Netherlands in the mid-15th century, becoming part of France in 1477. Its painters were strongly influenced by artists from the neighboring provinces of the Low Countries, among them Rogier van der Weyden and Simon Marmion.