An inscription at the bottom of the painting states "m petr[vs] xpi me· ·fecit·ao 1449· (Master Petrus Christus made me in the year 1449)".

The inscription uses the Burgundian batarde script, a style used on guild tablets of goldsmiths and manuscript illuminators.

It coordinates with the lighting of the painting where on the left the signature is fainter as it is shadowed by the marriage girdle.

According to Panofsky, this explanation is consistent with a painting commissioned by a goldsmiths' guild to advertise its services to the community, particularly its participation in the sacraments of the church.

One of the objects is a pair of  fossilized shark's teeth intended to represent "serpents' tongues".

The raw materials are the coral, crystal, porphyry, seed pearls, precious stones, and beads while the finished brooches, rings, and a belt buckles represented products of the trade.

[2] On a shelf, immediately to the (viewer's) right of the goldsmith's head is a coconut cup mounted in silver.

After Jan van Eyck, Christus was the leading painter in Bruges, which is located in Flanders.

Scholars assume he managed van Eyck’s workshop for the three years then working independently as a free citizen.

[5] According to records from the Poorterboek (burgher's lodge[2]) in the town of Bruges in 1444 he bought his citizenship for three pounds on July 6 that year.

[6] His citizenship classified him as a free citizen so he could be accepted in the Guild of St. Luke and could sell his work.

[5] In 1462–63 he and his wife became members of the Bruges Confraternity of Our Lady of the Dry Tree (referring to infertility of the Virgin's mother, Saint Anne).

[2] As evidence of his elevated status, Christus received important commission from the Bruges city magistrate.

In 1998, Martha Wolff and Hugo van der Velden each observed that the painting had none of the common aspects of a saint.

[7] The Dutch art historian Hugo van der Velden thinks the main figure may be the famous goldsmith Willem van Vleuten, goldsmith to Phillip the Good, who by then lived in Bruges.

[3] In 1435 Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy entered into a treaty to end the conflict between the Burgundians and the French.

Starting then Philip created a strong central government in part by limiting the authority of the larger cities under his control, including Bruges.

After the murders, trade with England was stopped, resulting in unemployment and loss of income from exported wool and a shortage of food supply from English wheat.