Workshop of Joos van Cleve

Brussels, Exposition d'Art Ancien, Noël dans l’art ancien, 18 December 1941 – 6 January 1942, no. 40;
Tokyo, Tobu Museum of Art, The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, 29 March – 25 June 1995, no. F9.

M. J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. IX, part 1, Leyden and Brussels 1972, p. 64, cat. no. 64B, reproduced plate 81 (as by 'Imitator A' in the studio of Van Cleve and with incorrect provenance);
S. Leclercq et al., La Collection Coppée, Liège 1991, pp. 16–17, reproduced;
M. Wilmott, in the catalogue of the exhibition The World of Bruegel. The Coppée Collection and Eleven International Museums, Tokyo 1995, pp. 168–169, cat. no. F9, reproduced;
J. O. Hand, Joos van Cleve: the complete paintings, New Haven and London 2004, p. 153, cat. no. 63.5 (as a copy).

The panel is cradled and stable, with some minor old cracks in the corners. The paint surface is dirty and in excellent condition throughout. There are only a few local repairs, for example to the face of St Joseph and the lower left hand corner.
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The prototype by Van Cleve, painted around 1525, is now in the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire.¹ The Coppée painting is one of eight copies listed by John Hand in his recent catalogue, of which two, those formerly in the Thyssen Collection and that now in the Palazzo Odescalchi in Rome, he considers versions from the workshop with the possible assistance of Van Cleve himself. The others are in the Royal Collection in Buckingham Palace, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Bilbao, and the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn; the last two are untraced. The provenance given by Friedländer from the Klinkosh and Hoe collections in Vienna and New York respectively is instead given by Hand to another version, present whereabouts unknown, although the dimensions (77 x 58.5 cm) are closer to those of the present panel.² Some alterations have been made in the workshop to Joos’ original design: most noticeably a bowl of fruit and nuts replaces the orange and domestic accoutrements in the original, and three cherries and a shelf with a bottle and box are introduced on the right of the picture. Saint Joseph wears a very different hat but continues to read the text of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), while a tree is introduced into the landscape behind him. A cartellino of praise is placed above the head of Mary herself.

1. See Hand, under Literature, 2004, p. 152, cat. no. 63, reproduced fig. 85.
2. Ibid., p. 153, cat. no. 63.8.