The Master of Saint Ildefonso, also called The Master of the Verbeeck Triptych Active Bruges last quarter of the 15th Century

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 EUR

bidding is closed

Description

The Master of Saint Ildefonso, also called The Master of the Verbeeck Triptych
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD ENTHRONED, ACCOMPANIED BY AN ANGEL
oil on oak panel, arched top
53.7 by 35 cm.

Provenance

A. de Labrouhe de Laborderie, Paris;
His (deceased) sale, Amsterdam, Fred. Muller, 23 May 1922, lot 7;
M.A. Duchange, Roubaix;
His sale, Brussels, Fiévez, 25 June 1923, lot 29;
A.F. Philips, Eindhoven, 1923;
Thence by descent.

Exhibited

The Hague, Mauritshuis, Nederlandsche Kunst van de XVde en XVIde eeuw, 1 September – 21 October 1945, cat. no. 70a (as School of Hans Memling).

Literature

Friedländer VI, pp. 37, 58, no. 106, reproduced plate 130, no. 106, as possibly by a Memling disciple working in Spain;

Martens 1994, pp. 239-257;
de Vos 1994, pp. 395-6, reproduced p. 396, fig. 183;
Hans Memling, exhibition catalogue, Bruges 1994, p. 216, under no. 78.

Catalogue Note

The composition of the Virgin and Child enthroned with a flanking Angel is found in a number of key works by Hans Memling (circa 1433-1494), and was taken up by his School. While in several works by Memling and his followers the Virgin is seen reading, the present picture is unusual in that she is looking to her left and reading from a book on a lectern propped up on a table, rather than from a book held in her hand. M.J. Friedländer connects this picture on grounds of style with an altarpiece presently in the collection of the Art Museum, Worcester, Mass., of the Investiture of Saint Ildefonso – a particularly Spanish subject – which is likely to have been made for a Spanish patron, and quite possibly painted in Spain itself [1].

This view was taken a stage further by Dirk de Vos, who grouped the painter of the Worcester retable, with that of the present picture, and a number of other works, including two of The Virgin and Child, both in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (one in the Lehman collection), and a Lamentation in Santa Barbara. He named the anonymous hand The Master of Saint Ildefonso [2]. Martens came independently to the same conclusion [3], assembling broadly speaking the same group of works under the soubriquet The Master of the Verbeek Triptych, a name invented by A. Verbeek in 1971 to describe an altarpiece subsequently sold at Lempertz in Cologne in 1990[4].

[1] see under Literature

[2] see under Literature, Hans Memling. The Complete Works

[3] see under Literature

[4] A. Verbeek, `Ein Brugger Klappaltärchen des ausgehenden 15. Jahrhunderts’, in Festschrift für Wolfgang Krönig, Aachener Kunstblätter, no. 41, 1971, pp. 108-112.