The work was commissioned by Frederick III, Elector of Saxony, not a long time after his meeting with Dürer at Nuremberg in April 1496.

Modern scholars tend to attribute to Dürer only the central panel, the others having been executed by his pupils based on his drawings.

The central panel, portraying the Sorrowing Mother, arrived in the Bavarian museum from the Benediktbeuren convent of Munich in the early 19th century.

It was restored in the 1930s: once the overpaintings and additions were removed, the shell-shaped niche (a motif typical of Italian art), the halo and the sword (a symbol of Mary of the Seven Sorrows) on the right were rediscovered, clarifying the subject of the work.

Klaus Niehr, "Dürer's Bild der Sieben Schmerzen Mariens und die Bedeutung der retrospektiven Form," in: Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, vol.