National Gallery of Slovenia:
The panels are a remnant of the wings of a Late Gothic altar of the Holy Cross. In the central part of the altar was a painted, or more probably a sculpted group of the Crucifixion: on the inner (festive) side of the wings were scenes of Christ’s suffering, two of which are in the Narodna Galerija in Ljubljana, and two in Vienna. That these are really the festive sides is indicated by the gold background. On the working-day, outer side of the wings were scenes of the Finding of the Cross, of which only two are preserved in the Narodna Galerija, while the scene of the unearthing and the recognition of the True Cross (when touched by the Cross, a dead man rises again) and perhaps also the fourth scene, of the entry into Jerusalem of the emperor Heraclius with the Cross, which he had torn from the hands of the Persians, are missing. The panels, which were once painted on both sides, were later sawn up so as to make two out of one; the external pictures of the Viennese panels, with the legend of Saint Helen, have unfortunately been lost. Furthermore, all the panels were painted over a number of times.In the first panel below, Pontius Pilate has the visage of Vlad the Impaler.
