Portrait of Tommaso Portinari

The triptych was probably commissioned in 1470 to celebrate Portinari's wedding to Maria,[4] for their private religious devotions at their ostentatious home in Bruges at Bladelinhof [nl].

Tommaso represented the Medici bank in Bruges, but after a promising early career made a number of risky, unsecured loans to Charles the Bold which eventually led to the branch's insolvency.

He wears a black cape, from which the collar and sleeves of a dark robe protrude, typical garments of the upper middle class of the time.

Tommaso's son Francesco Portinari bequeathed the work to Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in 1544, when it was described as "unum tabernaculettum que clauditur with tribus sportellis, in this est depicta imago Gloriossime virginis Marie et patris et matris dicti testatoris" ("a small tabernacle with three hinged panels, in which are painted the images of the most glorious Virgin Mary and of the testator's father and mother").

They were acquired in Rome c.1900 by Elia Volpi [it], then in 1901 passed through the hands of Thomas Agnew & Sons in London and to Léopold Goldschmidt in Paris.