Follower of Hugo van der Goes

The De Hochepied Family;
By descent to Armand de Rémusat Guys (son of the Comtesse de Hochepied);
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 3 December 1969, lot 100, for £3,200;
Acquired by the family of the present owners in 1970.

Cincinnati Art Museum, 1904;
Chicago Art Institute, 1905;
Washington, Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1906-7;
Worcester (Massachusetts), Art Museum, 1939-1964, on loan.

The composition reflects a lost original by Hugo van der Goes known through a number of copies and derivations, the most famous of which is that in the Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (reproduced in M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Brussels and Leiden 1973, vol. IV, plate 37, no. 23a). The present version is closest to a painting listed by Friedländer (reproduced in op. cit., plate 36, no. 23e) as in the Vila Viçosa, Paço Ducal, Fundação da Casa de Bragança, which has in common the inclusion of the ladder leading up to the cross and the distinctive gilded background.