It is only quite recently that this picture was officially recognised as part of the series. Previously it had been thought to be younger than the altar's panels, perhaps painted between 1506 and 1510. How it had seceded from the series and what happened to it afterwards is obscure. Our earliest data is that it was given to the Museum of Fine Arts of Lille by an antique-dealer from Cologne. It was probably the upper panel on the right fixed-wing of the original altar. The picture is damaged in its present state which causes the composition to be imbalanced, with Mary's figure partly missing.

One of the interesting things about the picture is the youngest magus. Rather than looking at the infant Christ, he glances out of the picture thus making contact with the viewer. His figure is strongly different from the ideal types normally associated with the painter. The posture and the fact that it is more of a portrait than anything else led many scholars to think of it as a self-portrait of the painter or that of the donor.