The Holy Family

Details

WORKSHOP OF JOOS VAN CLEVE (?CLEVE 1485-1540 ANTWERP)
The Holy Family
inscribed 'R' (lower center, on the knife)
oil on panel
23 ¾ x 18 ½ in. (60.5 x 47 cm.)

Provenance

Count Gyula Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka the Younger (1860-1929), Budapest, and by descent to,
Countess Stella Kuykenstierna Andrássy (1902-1998); her sale, Kende Galleries at Gimbel Brothers, New York, 24-25 February 1950, lot 203.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 29 November 1961, lot 105, as Jan Joest van Kalkar, where acquired by the following,
with Julius H. Weitzner, New York and London, and by whom sold in 1973 to the following,
with Richard L. Feigen, New York.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 10 July 1974, lot 43, as Joos van Cleve (£22,000), where acquired by a private collector and by whom gifted on 24 April 2018 to the present owner.

Literature

'Astellung "Von Butione zu Chagall" bei Hallsborough', Die Weltkusnt, XXXV, 1965, p. 438, illustrated, as Jan Joest van Calcar.

Exhibited

Budapest, La Société Hongroise des Beaux-Arts, Exhibition of Ancient and Modern Belgian Art, May-June 1927, no. 228.
London, The Hallsborough Gallery, From Butione to Chagall: fine paintings and drawings of six centuries, 12 May-23 July 1965, no. 11, as Jan Joest van Calcar.
South Hadley, MA, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum, on loan 1984-2020.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

This elegant presentation of The Holy Family with a landscape background is typical of the devotional panels that Joos van Cleve and his workshop produced in the early 16th century. The three figures are positioned close to the picture plane, seated before a stone parapet upon which rest several fruits and still-life elements. A host of angels work together to lift a Cloth of Honor behind the seated Virgin and Child, imagery that would have reminded contemporary viewers of Mary’s status as Queen of Heaven. Following a 16th-century pictorial trend for which Joos himself played a key role in popularizing, Joseph here is not the marginalized observer, but an active protector of Christ. He presents the Child a bowl of porridge, or milk-soup, a mixture of milk and bread evoking both the intercessional power of the Virgin and the sacramental eucharistic bread. The seven figs set among the platter of cherries may also refer to the Seven Joys of the Virgin.

Another version of this composition of nearly equal dimensions (62.3 x 51.7 cm), though without the Cloth of Honor, was formerly with F. Kleinberger, Paris and New York, and is recorded in the archives of the RKD in The Hague (no. 42015). The two paintings were presumably made from a single cartoon, as the figures and most of the background details align. Some of the still-life elements also appear in both paintings, though in different positions; that is, the plate of cherries and figs, and the knife resting on the sliced citrus fruit.

A NOTE ON THE PROVENANCE:
Count Gyula (Julius) Andrássy de Csíkszentkirály et Krasznahorka the Younger was a Hungarian politician and author. Over the course of his career, he served as Minister of Education, Minister ad latere, Minister of the Interior, as well as Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister. A staunch legitimist, in 1921, he attempted to restore the Habsburg Charles I of Austria as King of Hungary. Following this failed coup, he was arrested and imprisoned.

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