Before the Revolution, this double-paneled polyptych (so named because the central part opens twice) adorned the church of the Antonine Commandery in Issenheim. A monastic order whose vocation was to treat patients suffering from the “holy fire” or “Saint Anthony’s fire”. Around 1510, one of the monastery’s superiors commissioned an altarpiece from Grünewald. A painter and hydraulic engineer, Grünewald was one of the greatest artists of his time. Yet his work remains modest, about ten paintings and a few drawings. He died in 1528 in Halle (Saxony).