This triptych was made for the cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudule in Brussels and later sold "to Spain for a very high price" according to Carel van Mander (1604). Philip II donated it to El Escorial in 1586. A fine Romanist, Coxcie remained faithful to what he had learned in Italy: the old lady reading in The Nativity is a copy of the Persian Sybil that Michelangelo painted in the dome of the Sistine Chapel. Coxcie never abandoned the Flemish tradition either, as can be seen in the realism of his objects and the interior of the church where Mary dies, which recalls Van Eyk.