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Detail of Catherine of Alexandria in the Dresden Triptych

The Dresden Triptych is a very small hinged-triptych altarpiece signed and dated 1437 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It consists of five paintings: one central and four on two double-sided wings. It may have been intended as a portable altarpiece, and is his only extant non-portrait painting signed with his personal motto ALC IXH XAN ("I Do as I Can"). The outer wings show the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in an Annunciation scene in grisaille. The inner panels are set in an ecclesiastical interior. In the central inner panel Mary holds the Christ Child; in the left-hand outer wing the Archangel Michael presents a kneeling donor; on the right Saint Catherine of Alexandria reads a prayer book (depicted). The triptych's frames are the originals; richly decorated with Latin inscriptions, they indicate that the donor, whose identity is now lost, was highly educated. The coats of arms on the interior borders are associated with the Giustiniani of Genoa – an influential albergo active from 1362. (Full article...)

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In the news

Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal

Dozens of civilians are killed and 35,000 others displaced after Islamist rebels seize the city of Palma in Mozambique.
The cargo ship Ever Given is freed after it had run aground, blocking the Suez Canal (satellite image shown) for six days and resulting in a traffic jam of more than 350 vessels.
A fire at the Rohingya refugee camp near Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, kills at least 15 people and injures hundreds of others.
In Australia, floods in New South Wales force the evacuation of more than 18,000 people.

On this day

March 30: Land Day in Palestinian communities (1976)

Moments after the attempted assassination of Reagan

1822 – The United States merged East Florida and West Florida to create the Florida Territory.
1861 – British chemist William Crookes published his discovery of thallium using flame spectroscopy.
1918 – Four days of inter-ethnic clashes broke out in Baku, Azerbaijan, resulting in about 12,000 deaths.
1981 – John Hinckley Jr. shot and wounded U.S. president Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton (immediate aftermath pictured).
2009 – The Manawan Police Academy in Lahore, Pakistan, was attacked and held for several hours by 12 gunmen, resulting in 16 deaths and 95 injuries.

Ralph Sadler (d. 1587)
Beau Brummell (d. 1840)
Celine Dion (b. 1968)

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Today's featured picture

Vincent van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter and one of the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. Van Gogh sold few paintings during his lifetime, and was contemporaneously considered a madman and a failure. However, he has attained widespread critical and popular acclaim since the early 20th century, and his works are among the world's most expensive paintings. Van Gogh produced this oil-on-canvas self-portrait in September 1889. One of his several self-portraits, it may have been his last, produced shortly before he left Saint-Rémy-de-Provence in southern France. The work is now in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

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