A triptych is a work of art made of three panels, usually hinged together, with a larger central panel flanked by two narrower wings that can fold over it. The form is most closely associated with painted religious altarpieces, but the term is also used for three-part mirrors, carved panels, icons and photographs arranged in the same way.
Triptychs were widespread in medieval and Renaissance Europe, especially in Flanders, Germany and Italy, where they served as altarpieces in churches and as small portable devotional objects for private prayer. The outer faces of the wings were often painted in grisaille or with donor portraits, so that the brilliantly coloured interior was revealed only on feast days or during worship. Russian and Byzantine travelling icons in carved wood or enamelled brass also used the triptych form. In later decorative arts, triple-panel dressing table mirrors, with two hinged side glasses that can be angled, became common in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Collectors of early triptychs pay close attention to the condition of paint layers, original hinges and frames, and whether all three panels belong together rather than being later reassembled.
