Master of the Lille Adoration active in Antwerp 1510 - 1530

Edmond Noël, Paris;
His sale, Paris, Petit, 27 May 1924, lot 4 (as Henri Bles);
Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 29 January 1998, lot 74 (as Attributed to Jan Dornicke, The Master of 1518);
With Rob Smeets, Milan.

Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 15 October - 31 December 2005, Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, 22 January - 9 April 2006, Extravagant!.  A forgotten chapter of Antwerp painting 1500-1530, no. 90.

P. van den Brink, Extravagant!.  A forgotten chapter of Antwerp painting 1500-1530, exhibition catalogue, Antwerp, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, 15 October - 31 December 2005; Maastricht, Bonnefantenmuseum, 22 January - 9 April 2006, pp. 212-14, cat. no. 90, reproduced p. 213.

The catalogue illustration is representative. The triptych has recently been cleaned and restored. There is an old repaired vertical split running down the centre of the central panel, and an irregular split running through the centre of the right hand wing. The left hand wing has only a small 10 cm split on its upper right edge. The restoration has been meticulously carried out and is not readily apparent to the naked eye. The paint surface of both wings is beautifully preserved and there has been only minimal intervention here. The central panel is more restored: no large losses or damages are evident, the biggest being three old 2cm losses on the back of the foremost king and a 3cm damage on the hand of the Virgin and the knee of the Christ Child, but there has been extensive careful retouching to the split, the foreground ledge and the sky. The varnish is clear and even, and the triptych should require no further attention. This lot is offered in a later parcel gilt frame in good condition.
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The anonymous artist was named after an Adoration of the Shepherds in Lille previously attributed, as were other paintings from the same hand, to Dirk Vellert.  Peter van den Brink notes the popularity of the present subject in Antwerp, where similar treatments of it emanated from a variety of different workshops, including that of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, and Jan van Dornicke, also known as The Master of 1518, to whom this triptych was formerly attributed.  Van den Brink observes that stylistically it fits perfectly with paintings by the Master of the Lille Adoration.