Joiners' Guild Altarpiece

The new guild first approached Peterceels and Van Kessel, two carvers active in Leuven, but this and a further commission to a sculptor in Antwerp in 1503 all fell through.

In 1508 the commission was transferred to Massijs, who had already produced a now-lost altarpiece showing the Descent from the Cross for the Coopers' Guild[2] The contract between the joiners' guild and Massijis still survives, stipulating a payment of 300 guilders to the artist, though when the painting was finally delivered on 26 August 1511 it decided instead to set up a fund for Quinten and Catharina, the artist's children by his first marriage to Alijt van Tuylt.

[3] The altarpiece survived a huge fire in the church nineteen years after its installation as well as a wave of iconoclasm in 1566.

Both Philip II of Spain and Elizabeth I of England tried to buy the work, but Maerten de Vos managed to convince the town council to buy the work to prevent its going abroad.

At that time the painting, its marble base and two copper covers were valued at 600 florins by the French commissioner.