The two works were property of Farr Gallery, London in 1909. Then, the Bruges panel was transferred to Kleinberger Gallery, Paris by 1911, and entered the Groeningemuseum in 1912. There is no record of the Tokyo panel in the catalogue compiled by Kleinberger Gallery in 1911, and it appears that the two works were separated before that. The Tokyo panel was purchased by Matsukata Kōjirō at the beginning of the twentieth century and sent to Tokyo. Thereafter, via a private collection in Japan, it was acquired by the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo in 2017.

On the occasion of the acquisition in 2017, the National Museum of Western Art conducted a survey of the panel, through which it was confirmed that the Tokyo panel and the Bruges panel once belonged to a larger ensemble such as an altarpiece. This exhibition was planned as a result of this rediscovery, and the two panels which went separate ways, one to Belgium and one to Japan, at the beginning of the twentieth century are to be “reunited” after more than a hundred years. The fruit of the surveys of the panels undertaken by the Groeningemuseum and the National Museum of Western Art from 2017 onward will also be reported through a display, lectures, and a collection of papers.