Lot 132
  • 132

Netherlandish School, circa 1520-30

Estimate
40,000 - 60,000 GBP
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Description

  • the nativity, with a donor and his wife
  • oil on oak panel
  • 23in by 18¼in

Exhibited

York, City Art Gallery, Masterpieces from Yorkshire Houses, 1951, cat. no.35, as by the Pseudo Bles;
Leeds, City Art Gallery and Temple Newsam House, Church Art from Catholic Yorkshire, 3 February- 3 March 1979, cat no. 5, as by the Psuedo Bles.

Catalogue Note

This painting was long considered to be by the Pseudo-Bles, a name coined by Friedländer for a group of Antwerp Mannerist paintings, one of which bore a false Blesius signature.  While its Antwerp links are not wholly to be discounted, this devotional panel has something in common with certain prototypes from elsewhere in the Netherlands. The angel drying the cloth at the fire in the background, for example, is cited from Hieronymous Bosch1 while the dressed angel seemingly coming in to land above the donors recalls the same in Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen's two depictions of the Adoration of the Christ Child in Naples, (Capodimonte) and Chicago (Instiute of Arts).2 With both these the present panel shares similar decorative mouldings on the columns and a very similar compositional arrangement. 

1.  See the Altarpiece of the Adoration of the Magi in the Church of St. Peter, Anderlecht (Brussels); M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. V, Leiden 1969, p. 82, no. 69, reproduced plate 52. 
2. M.J, Friedlander, op. cit., vol. XII, pp.115-16, nos. 253 and 254, reproduced plates 141 and 142.