This is the central panel of what was probably a triptych ordered for the Chapel of the Kings of the Parish Church of Machico, instituted by Branca Teixeira, daughter of the first donatory captain of Machico. The Chapel of the kings must have been founded at the time of the reconstruction of the Church between 1496 and 1499, by the founder Branca Teixeira, who left her assets to Fernão Teixeira, her nephew, the son of her sister, Tristoa Teixeira.
It reveals a composition that excites the viewer because of the refined minutia of its details, as well as the overall dimensions and unexpected aerial perspectives. The group of Mary with the Child occupies the centre of the composition, flanked by the three Wise Men, who illustrate the three ages of Man, and St. Joseph. The procession of the kings extends from the imaginary Gate of the City of Bethlehem.
The opulence and realism in the details stand out, as in the ornaments and liturgical vestments and textures of the silk brocades, since it was for a clientele that appreciated a certain ostentation.
The painting was first attributed to the so-called master of 1518, then to Joos van Cleve.
More recently, the possibility was raised that it belongs to an unknown master, called by Fernando António Baptista Pereira¹ and Luiza Clode, the Master of the Adoration of Machico, an anonymous painter who was active in Antwerp in the last decades of the 15th century and the early 16th century and who was influenced by Joos van Cleve, and by the master of 1518, already identified as Jan van Dornicke, by Jan de Beer, Patenier and Metsys. This painting will serve as the standard for the attribution of works in this museum to the same painter.

¹ Arte Flamenga, Museu de Arte Sacra do Funchal, Luiza Clode e Fernanto António Baptista Pereira, EDICARTE, 1997, p. 52.