The National Gallery in London has purchased a 500-year-old altarpiece, *The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels*, for £16.4 million from an anonymous owner. The painting, created between 1500 and 1510, is of unknown authorship—experts cannot agree whether the artist was Netherlandish or French, with candidates including Jan Gossaert and Jean Hey. The oak panel was felled around 1483, and the work was first documented at the priory of Drongen in Ghent in 1602. It was sold through Sotheby’s with support from the American Friends of the National Gallery London and had been kept at the Lulworth Estate in Dorset, home of the Weld family.
The acquisition matters because it is one of the most expensive purchases for the national collection despite the artist being unidentified, challenging the art world’s focus on named masters. The altarpiece features unusual iconography—a crying dragon and a Jew’s harp—that makes it a rare and inventive example of late medieval or early Renaissance art. The gallery hopes ongoing research and public display will solve the mystery of its creator. The work will go on view from May 10 as part of the gallery’s rehang and the reopening of its renovated Sainsbury Wing, drawing attention to the value of anonymous masterpieces and the role of tax incentive schemes in keeping heritage objects in the UK.