The first written mention of the painting is in the travel diaries of
Albrecht Dürer, who saw it in 1520 whilst he was en route to the Netherlands, noting that he paid two
Weißpfennig to see a painting by "Master Steffan of Cologne". The altarpiece's original location, St. Maria in Jerusalem, replaced a former Jewish
synagogue. This happened the year after the expulsion of all Jews from Cologne in 1423, and an earlier 1349
pogrom that had damaged the synagogue. The altarpiece originally sat on the stone base used to support the synagogue's
Torah ark. On 3 April 2025, the Cologne Cathedral announced that a mural by
Andrea Büttner would soon be painted on the wall behind the Adoration of the Magi Altarpiece. Büttner designed a life-size realistic painting of the Torah ark's stone base that the altarpiece had rested on, but now painted so the base appears to float above the altarpiece. The mural is designed to counter the overwriting of
Jewish history in Cologne, and was the winner of the Cologne Cathedral International Art Competition, which aimed to add art on Jewish-Christian relations to the cathedral. Büttner stated that she wanted her piece to "take something that has been hidden from the cathedral's visitors up to now and have it openly displayed in a central location." == Imagery ==