Lot 15
  • 15

South Netherlandish School, circa 1500

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 GBP
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Description

  • portrait of a young woman, probably mary of burgundy, bust length, in the guise of st. mary magdelene
  • oil on oak panel, let into a larger oak panel and thus enlarged at the top and sides

Provenance

A la Palette D'Or, Paris (according to an 18th- or early 19th-century label affixed to the reverse);
Baron Robert Gendebien, bears his stamp on the reverse;
Thence by descent to the present owner, his granddaughter.

Condition

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This little painting might appear to be set into a wider and taller thin oak panel, with quite broad painted, or overpainted, borders at the sides and top that are clearly considerably later. However there is no sign at the edge of the base or elsewhere of any other thin supporting layers, and little lost flakes in the jar near the base show the wood of the panel, so perhaps the original smaller portrait was in a wider framework in some way on three sides. There is a brief old crack at the centre top edge of the panel with a little supporting block behind. The lower outer edges of the figure are clearly part of the later repaint as is the outer background. There are some little dark superficial retouchings on the original background around the join, and some touches scattered over the background between the hair and the neck and round the profile. The jar and fingers have a few discoloured old retouchings with the little other lost flakes mentioned above, and there is a little rectangular line in the jar apparently scored at some time. The only other damage appears to be one little scrape by the border of the dress, a tiny lost flake to the left of the mouth and one other little lost flake in the neck under the veil. Beneath the accumulated layers of old varnish there is clearly a fine enamelled surface and craquelure. The delicate strands of golden hair and beautiful detail appear to be unusually intact, as do the films of glazing in the modelling throughout. The nostril might be slightly strengthened and possibly the line of the upper lid, but essentially the original inner section of the painting is in lovely intact condition. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

The traditional identification of the sitter is lent support by similarities with known likenesses of her, most of which (including the present work) are however likely to be posthumous.  Her features, and especially her heart-shaped face with a small chin and mouth, can be recognised in those of the donatrix in Jan Mostaert's diptych of Christ appearing to His Mother and The Redeemed, which was included in the exhibition Prayers and Portraits, and was extensively discussed in the catalogue, where this identification "appears to be confirmed".1  A portrayal of her probably done during her lifetime in a manuscript illumination in The Hours of Mary of Burgundy is however less convincing,2  though it may well not have been a likeness, while a profile portrait of her by Michael Pacher is much more convincing, showing her upturned nose not so evident, but nonetheless imaginable, in the present portrayal of her with her head turned to her right.  In these depictions of her, and in an anonymous portrayal of her of circa 1530-40 in Gaasbeek Castle, Belgium,3  she is shown with her characteristic tall hennin, but only in the present work does her blonde hair hang down beyond it.

Mary of Burgundy (1457-1482) was the only child of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his wife Isabella of Bourbon, and as the sole heiress of the rich domains of the Duchy of Burgundy, her hand was eagerly sought by a number of princes.  She succeeded her father upon his death in battle in 1477, but the French King Louis XI perfidiously claimed and seized her rightful territory, hoping she would succumb to the charms of the Dauphin.  Rightly mistrusting the French, she obtained an alliance with the Netherlands, ceding under the charter of rights known as 'The Great Privilege' far reaching concessions, which weakened the power of the Burgundian state.  Mary married the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, later the Emperor Maximilian I, in Ghent on August 18th 1477.  They had three children, including their eldest son Philip, who succeeded to her dominions under the guardianship of her father upon her premature death following a fall from her horse on 27th March 1482.   Her daughter, Margaret of Austria, who shared some of her physical features (but was much less beautiful), was a significant patron of the arts, and may have been responsible for the Jan Mostaert diptych incorporating her likeness as a donatrix.

The iconography of a portrayal as the Magdalene is unusual but not unknown.  The putative sitter's daughter Margaret of Austria was so portrayed, holding an open jar of ointment, in a work attributed to her Court Painter, Bernard van Orley.4  No satisfactory attribution has yet been found for the present portrait, but it surely belongs to a generation earlier than Van Orley.  If the identification of the sitter is correct, it may well have been painted for the Brussels Court.

1  The Diptych, perhaps painted around 1520, but certainly not significantly earlier, is divided between the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede (inv. 0013) and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (inv. 1930.76); the half with the donatrix at the latter.  They were exhibited together recently in Washington; see J.O. Hand, C.A. Metzger, R. Spronk, Prayers and Portraits.  Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, exhibition catalogue, New Haven & London, pp. 192-97, 320,  no. 28, reproduced.
2  Ă–sterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna, codex 1857, fol. 14v; see Hand et al, op. cit., reproduced p. 196, fig. 3.
3  Idem, reproduced p. 196, fig. 2.
4  Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich, formerly on deposit at Schleissheim, inv. 1133.  The execution is proabbly not from Van Orley's hand, but the design is surely due to him.