The Fall of Simon Magus (front) and St. Margaret of Antioch (reverse)

Jan Rombouts I's double-sided panel depicting the Fall of Simon Magus on the front and Saint Margaret of Antioch on the reverse, dated around 1520 and now at M Leuven in Belgium, is an unusual survival of a processional or altarpiece wing format in which both sides of the panel were painted for different contexts of viewing. The Fall of Simon Magus — the magician's crash to earth when his attempt to fly before the Emperor Nero was defeated by Peter and Paul's prayers — was a subject that dramatised apostolic authority against magical imposture, with obvious relevance to the church's ongoing assertion of spiritual power. Saint Margaret, shown on the reverse, was the patron saint of childbirth and one of the most popular saints in late medieval devotion. Rombouts was a Leuven painter working in the Brabantine tradition, and M Leuven preserves this work as an important document of regional Flemish painting in the early sixteenth century.

The double-sided panel format requires two distinct compositions of different character — the dramatic narrative of Simon's fall and the devotional static portrait of Margaret. Rombouts renders the fall with dynamic energy the airborne figure plunging against a sky and crowd. Margaret on the reverse is presented in the formal devotional manner with dragon attribute. The Brabantine figure style combines Flemish precision with modest monumentality.