The Merode Altarpiece at the Cloisters represents time immemorial

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ken Johnson

"Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece)" (1427) by Robert Campin (Netherlandish, ca. 1375–1444 Tournai)

NEW YORK---The Merode Altarpiece, a triptych at the Cloisters, ranks among the world’s most beautiful paintings. Produced in the South Netherlands workshop of Robert Campin between 1427 and 1432, it’s also a time machine that shuttles the mind across millenniums while orchestrating a convergence of the natural and the supernatural. The nearly square central panel, only about 25 inches on a side, depicts one of Christianity’s foundational myths, the Annunciation, with hallucinatory vividness. [link]