Focus on this artwork and discuss the Original altarpiece.
For all the known history of the painting it has been together with the NG 1079 Adoration, but this goes no further back than early 19th-century London.  Whether the two originally formed part of the same polyptych is not quite certain, but it seems most likely.  The Lamentation is some 3 cm larger in both dimensions, and its underdrawing "is inconsistent in style and some parts can be reconciled with the underdrawing of the Adoration", but others not.   In the two panels the figures are about the same size, and the horizons at the same level, and no other panels of these dimensions are attributed to David or his workshop.  Both panels are planed down at the back, and may originally have been painted on both sides, as parts of the wings of an altarpiece on the Life of Christ or Life of the Virgin, with a central panel about four times the size of these ones.
David Christ underdrawing Life of Christ Life of the Virgin London polyptych