During the fifteenth century, the realistic Flemish style spread to the northern Netherlands, France, and Germany. This panel painting was once credited to the famous northern Netherlandish artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans but is now ascribed to the Master of the Brunswick Diptych, whom some art historians identify with Jacob Jansz. The work of both Geertgen and the Brunswick Diptych master owes much to the intense coloring and hard-edged forms of Flemish art. The museum's panel, along with a Nativity in the Rijksmuseum and an Annunciation in the Glasgow Art Gallery, once belonged to an altarpiece of the life of the Virgin. According to Jewish law, the firstborn of each living thing was to be sacrificed to the Lord, but children were to be redeemed by the payment of five shekels. Forty days after the birth of a male child, mothers were purified by an offering of two turtledoves or pigeons. As reported in the Gospel of Luke, the Purification of the Virgin and the Presentation of Christ took place in the Temple at the same time. The dour and somewhat wooden figures in this painting enact these rites in a Romanesque interior with leaded glass windows. The high priest Simeon holds the infant Jesus in his arms while Mary gives the birds to be sacrificed - an allusion to Christ's death, which will cleanse mankind of original sin.