Exterior The reverse of the wings become visible when the shutters are closed. They contain a representation of nine
cranes st against a late evening landscape spread across the two panels. Dark trees rise against a late evening sky on the topmost edges; the sky fades to grey and then to pink on the farthest horizon, suggesting either sunset or sunrise. The left panel contains a
coat of arms with red and white
chevrons (a v-shaped mark) and a pair of
compasses on its top corners, which are positioned above the cranes, against the fading sky. The cranes in a landscape is unusual for 15th-century Netherlandish triptychs; typically the doors, (or reverse panels), were painted in
grisaille to represent statues of saints. Rohlmann as "fascinating". Mary is seated on her throne holding Jesus on her lap, beneath a
canopy of honor decorated in characteristic Memling fashion with swags of red fabric. on which cherubs (
putto) are perched holding
garlands. The central panel rear
columns are in a
barley twisted design and gilded; their
capitals supporting sculptures –
Samson killing the lion on the left;
Cain slaying Abel on the right. The other columns, those supporting the putti and those seemingly part of Mary's throne are rendered in a dark reddish marble hue, seen in Netherlandish art since
Jan van Eyck, but unlike van Eyck, Memling's have gilded bases and capitals, in the Italian fashion. A boundary is in achieved
Petrus Christus's
Nativity with the grisaille archway, with the
Holy Family placed firmly behind the arch in the sacred space, beyond the secular and earthly realm. Memling's use of arches tends more towards the decorative; rather than indicating separation of heavenly and earthly spaces, they simply float within a space as a design element. The arch floating above the Virgin and Child exhibits a number of Italianate ''all'antica'' motifs. The outer rim consists of half
rosettes and the inner rim is decorated on the one side with a grape vine (symbol of the
eucharist) and the other side with ivy. Although gilded, resembling polished metal (or perhaps sculpture), the art historian Paula Nuttall writes that the plants "are concomitantly a tour de force of naturalistic observation, with their curling tendrils and delicate roots, as are the two pairs of snail and a lizard beneath them". The left wing shows
St. John the Baptist with his emblem of a Lamb; the right shows
St. Lawrence with a book and his instruments of torture. St. John is dressed in a hair shirt and mantle; the saint is almost identical to Memling's St. John in the
Donne Triptych and similar to figure in the center panel of the
St John Altarpiece. St. Lawrence is dressed in a white
alb and a red
dalmatic. St. Lawrence is rarely depicted in Netherlandish art or by Memling, suggesting that the buyer requested and approved the specific figure. The standing saints are enclosed in an architectural frame representing the
tracery of Gothic windows; Through the windows are landscapes, which were emulated by Italian artists. A
tondo by
Biagio d'Antonio cites specific portions of the landscapes of the wing panels. ==Identification and attribution==