This picture (called predella panel) once belonged to a much larger multipanel altarpiece, whose principal composition represented the Massacre of the Innocents: a mass slaughter of male children undertaken in the Bible by the Judean King Herod in an effort to prevent Jesus from reaching adulthood. This panel offers a prologue to the story: three Magi, kings or wise men from the East, arrive at Herod’s palace. Leaving their horses and camels in the forecourt, they enter the throne room and share the news of Jesus’s birth with the king, little imagining his violent response.