Dürer set his Adoration of the Child between two dilapidated buildings, as described in the Legenda aurea. The Paumgartner donor family is kneeling on the ground: on the left are the brothers Lukas and Stephan with their father, Martin, who died in 1478, and Barbara Paumgartner’s second husband, Hans Schönbach; on the right is Barbara Paumgartner, née Volckamer, with her two daughters. It was not unusual at that time to portray people in certain roles, as on the wings. Old reports testify that the wings were painted in 1498; the central panel was possibly created slightly later as it exhibits a more advanced use of perspective. The altarpiece was originally on the east wall of the south aisle in the Dominican Katharinenkirche in Nuremberg.