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Lot Essay
From the mid-1520s onwards, possibly after the death of his Maecenas Philip of Burgundy in 1524, Jan Gossart and his workshop started to paint several small-scale paintings of the Virgin and Child, sometimes including Joseph. These private devotional pictures proved to be very much in demand and were copied widely. Whether Gossart had set up a large workshop to be able to produce enough paintings for a demanding market, or that most of the copies were painted by others, outside the Gossart-workshop, is still a matter of debate. The reasons for this popularity are not difficult to grasp. Gossart was able to bring new life into a subject-matter that hadn’t been dusted for a very long time. The many variations in the compositions, combined with the delicacy of execution and a brilliant use of classical outlook and trompe l’oeil effects must have attracted the intellectual and courtly circles especially.
Gossart’s earliest preoccupation with the production of images of the Virgin and Child in a standardized form was not in painting, but in print. The only two engravings he himself produced are depictions of the Virgin and Child and one of them is dated 1522 (see N.M. Orenstein in M.W. Ainsworth, op. cit., pp. 408-09, no. 112). Although the 1522 engraving was never copied in a painting, there are a few important parallels in regard to the composition of the present Virgin and Child. First and foremost, the Virgin’s face seems to be modeled directly on the print, both in position and in details, like the pearl string on her head. The drapery folds, too, are quite similar, as well as the position of her lap. And although the Christ Child is utterly different in comparison, the cheek-to-cheek positioning (inspired by the Byzantine Glykophilousa type) is comparable, as is the – not unusual – presence of an apple in the hand of the Christ Child, a reference to the Fall of Man.
This remarkable picture from an American private collection is known in at least ten other versions and copies. The lost prototype must have been close to the version now in the Prado, Madrid, which stands out as being the painting with the highest quality and is without doubt by Jan Gossart’s own hand, painted circa 1527. Of the other comparable versions, the oddest one is the very personal interpretation of Hans Baldung Grien, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. It had been suggested by Ernst Weisz that the Prado Virgin and Child once formed a diptych with a Portrait of a man with a rosary in the National Gallery in London (E. Weisz, Jan Gossart gen. Mabuse: Sein Leben und Seine Werk, Freise, 1913, pp. 58-59). Though this theory has been nearly universally rejected, when looking at the London portrait, there is no doubt that it must have been part of such a construction, as was recently confirmed by Susan Foister (S. Foister, N. Penny, J. Dunkerton, Dürer to Veronese. Sixteenth-Century Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven & London, 1999, p. 161, fig. 192). The Prado picture cannot have been the pendant of the London portrait, however, since the architectural background does not fit in with that of the Man with the rosary and furthermore the – still original – dimensions differ. The architectural backdrop of the present Virgin and Child, however, accords with the National Gallery portrait much more harmoniously, though its reduced scale relative to the London portrait excludes the possibility of them ever being part of the same diptych.
Dendrochronological analysis of the present painting by Prof. Dr. Peter Klein revealed that the single board of oak came from the same tree as the boards of three other pictures by Jan Gossart: the Metamorphosis of Hermaphrodite and the nymph Salmacis in Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. 2451) and two donor wings in the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (inv. no. 4740). The youngest heartwood ring of these four boards can be found on the Rotterdam panel and dates from 1480. Under the assumption of a median of fifteen sapwood rings and ten years for seasoning a creation is plausible from 1505 upwards. Of course, none of these paintings can be dated around 1505. It is remarkable enough that the Rotterdam picture, given by Gossart’s Maecenas, Philipp of Burgundy, to Margaret of Austria before 1523, is generally dated to circa 1517, while the two donor wings in Brussels were painted ten years later, circa 1525-1530.
Because no less than three other paintings by Gossart were painted on oak boards from the same tree, it is certainly plausible that the Virgin and Child was produced in Gossart’s workshop sometime between 1517 and 1530. Given the fact that the companion piece of the National Gallery Portrait of a man with a rosary is still missing, it makes the most sense that the present picture was a smaller replica that was produced in the studio of the painter. Since the Portrait of a man with a rosary should be dated to circa 1525, the present Virgin and Child must therefore date to between 1525 and 1530.
Peter van den Brink
Gossart’s earliest preoccupation with the production of images of the Virgin and Child in a standardized form was not in painting, but in print. The only two engravings he himself produced are depictions of the Virgin and Child and one of them is dated 1522 (see N.M. Orenstein in M.W. Ainsworth, op. cit., pp. 408-09, no. 112). Although the 1522 engraving was never copied in a painting, there are a few important parallels in regard to the composition of the present Virgin and Child. First and foremost, the Virgin’s face seems to be modeled directly on the print, both in position and in details, like the pearl string on her head. The drapery folds, too, are quite similar, as well as the position of her lap. And although the Christ Child is utterly different in comparison, the cheek-to-cheek positioning (inspired by the Byzantine Glykophilousa type) is comparable, as is the – not unusual – presence of an apple in the hand of the Christ Child, a reference to the Fall of Man.
This remarkable picture from an American private collection is known in at least ten other versions and copies. The lost prototype must have been close to the version now in the Prado, Madrid, which stands out as being the painting with the highest quality and is without doubt by Jan Gossart’s own hand, painted circa 1527. Of the other comparable versions, the oddest one is the very personal interpretation of Hans Baldung Grien, in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg. It had been suggested by Ernst Weisz that the Prado Virgin and Child once formed a diptych with a Portrait of a man with a rosary in the National Gallery in London (E. Weisz, Jan Gossart gen. Mabuse: Sein Leben und Seine Werk, Freise, 1913, pp. 58-59). Though this theory has been nearly universally rejected, when looking at the London portrait, there is no doubt that it must have been part of such a construction, as was recently confirmed by Susan Foister (S. Foister, N. Penny, J. Dunkerton, Dürer to Veronese. Sixteenth-Century Painting in the National Gallery, New Haven & London, 1999, p. 161, fig. 192). The Prado picture cannot have been the pendant of the London portrait, however, since the architectural background does not fit in with that of the Man with the rosary and furthermore the – still original – dimensions differ. The architectural backdrop of the present Virgin and Child, however, accords with the National Gallery portrait much more harmoniously, though its reduced scale relative to the London portrait excludes the possibility of them ever being part of the same diptych.
Dendrochronological analysis of the present painting by Prof. Dr. Peter Klein revealed that the single board of oak came from the same tree as the boards of three other pictures by Jan Gossart: the Metamorphosis of Hermaphrodite and the nymph Salmacis in Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam (inv. no. 2451) and two donor wings in the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels (inv. no. 4740). The youngest heartwood ring of these four boards can be found on the Rotterdam panel and dates from 1480. Under the assumption of a median of fifteen sapwood rings and ten years for seasoning a creation is plausible from 1505 upwards. Of course, none of these paintings can be dated around 1505. It is remarkable enough that the Rotterdam picture, given by Gossart’s Maecenas, Philipp of Burgundy, to Margaret of Austria before 1523, is generally dated to circa 1517, while the two donor wings in Brussels were painted ten years later, circa 1525-1530.
Because no less than three other paintings by Gossart were painted on oak boards from the same tree, it is certainly plausible that the Virgin and Child was produced in Gossart’s workshop sometime between 1517 and 1530. Given the fact that the companion piece of the National Gallery Portrait of a man with a rosary is still missing, it makes the most sense that the present picture was a smaller replica that was produced in the studio of the painter. Since the Portrait of a man with a rosary should be dated to circa 1525, the present Virgin and Child must therefore date to between 1525 and 1530.
Peter van den Brink