seems, for example on the retable of Claude de Villa, to be a mark of the screenwerkers generally, who worked in concert with the image makers. To them was allotted the part of carrying out the general architectural forms. Then came the turn of the composer of the picture, the sculptor of the figures, and the painter and gilder. An interesting document exists among the archives of Louvain, in which Jan Borreman agrees to execute by his own hand all the figures of a certain piece of sculpture to be made by the screenwerker Petercels.

Our national museum at Kensington acquired so long ago as 1855 an extremely fine specimen of an altarpiece of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It is of considerable dimensions, uncoloured-in its present condition at least-and, of course, of oak. The illustration here given will obviate the necessity of more than a brief description (Plate Iv.). The general formation, with a central panel and two wings is much the same as in many others of the style and period, but plainer and not so rich in ornament. The figures of the apostles, now placed upon it, may or may not have been originally connected with it. The principal subject represents the death of the Virgin : on the wings are the Nativity and the Visit of the Magi. We may remark that the character of the drapery is excessively tourmenté in the multiplicity and the arrangement of the folds. The piece is said to have come from the cathedral of St. Bavon at Ghent. It would be interesting if we could verify this origin. The fine retable, formerly in the church at Anderghem, and now in the Brussels Museum, is a good example of the coloured and profusely gilded Flemish flamboyant style of mid-fifteenth century. Within a moderate compass the groups of figures form a living composition, each in its way superior to more realistic work, as, for example, in the choir at Ulm. Naturally, Belgium and the museums of the chief city of the modern state are rich in specimens.