South Netherlandish School, circa 1490

Leo S. Bing, New York and Beverly Hills, by circa 1920;
Thence by inheritance to Anna Bing Arnold, Beverly Hills;
By whom given to The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, (acc. no. M.82.208)

University of California, Santa Barbara, UCSB Art Museum; Bloomington, Indiana University Art Museum; Claremont, California, Montgomery Art Gallery; Amarillo, Texas, Art Center, In her Image: the Great Goddess in Indian Asia and the Madonna in Christian Culture, April 2, 1980 - January 18, 1981, cat. no. 9 

R.P. Gowen, In her Image: the Great Goddess in Indian Asia and the Madonna in Christian Culture, exhibition catalogue, Santa Barbara 1980, p. 110, cat. no. 9;
S. Schaefer, et al., European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1987, p. 104, reproduced (as anonymous French [?]).

Panel is uncradled and beveled on all four sides. under a slightly yellowed varnish. the paint surface has been generally well retained and there is very nice preservation of detail. ultraviolet light shows only some tiny pinprick retouches to the Christ child's head and one or two tiny retouches to his lower leg and foot; some slight reinforcements in Virgin's hair. In a plain gilt wood frame with minor nicks.
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This pictorial type of the Virgin Nursing the Christ Child [Maria Lactans] became popular in Bruges during the 15th century.  It is a variant on the pose of the Virgin and Child in Rogier van der Weyden's St. Luke Drawing the Virgin (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, inv. no. 93.153), and was employed by Gerard David and the Master of the Legend of St. Ursula, as well as by artists in Isenbrant's workshop.¹

1. See M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, New York 1971, vol. II, pp. 84-85, nos. 109a and 109b, reproduced plate 121; vol. IV, p. 60, plate 142, nos. 121.