By Prince Albert's day, the panel paintings in this trail looked very different to how they would have originally been used and displayed in a religious context. Some were once part of much larger and elaborate altarpieces. In the Christian tradition, an altarpiece is the decorated structure often placed on or behind an altar in a church, oratory or other religious setting.

It is not uncommon for Italian altarpieces to have been destroyed, or cut up and their fragments dispersed. This might be because of the changing function or demolition of a church, combined with fashions in collecting.  The suppression of religious institutions in Italy – not least under Napoleon and the French in the first two decades of the nineteenth century - meant that there were increased opportunities for collectors to acquire these kinds of works.