Circle of Joos van Cleve

Private collection, Paris, by 1929;

Probably Edouard Allez, Paris;

Probably thence by descent to his son, Bernard Allez (b. 1904);

Thence by descent to his daughter, Simonne Allez (1927-2021), Paris;

Anonymous sale, Paris, Artcurial, 9 November 2021, lot 15 (as Flemish School, 16th century);

Where acquired by the present owner.

M. Freidländer, "Zwei altniederländische Bilder in der Spiridon-Sammlung," Pantheon 3 (1929), p. 212, reproduced p. 206 (as Netherlandish School, circa 1520).

During the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, Joos van Cleve and his workshop produced around thirty paintings of the Holy Family. Roughly divisible into four groups, based on the arrangement of the Virgin and Child, they were tremendously popular in their day.¹ The present painting is closely related to the so-called Friedsam Virgin and Child (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 32.100.57) and a painting sold at Sotheby's, New York in January 2012.² In all three, the angular pose of the Christ Child, who sits on his mother's lap with a remarkably straight back, derives from Jan van Eyck's Lucca Madonna (Frankfurt, Städelmuseum, inv. no. 944).

A nearly identical painting was formerly in the Schloss collection; after being plundered by the Nazis, that work was restituted to the Schloss family in 1946 and sold at Galerie Charpentier, Paris, on 25 May 1949.³

¹ See M. Leeflang, Joos van Cleve: A Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Artist and His Workshop, Turnhout 2015, pp. 182-190.

² New York, Sotheby's, 26 January 2012, lot 14. See J. Hand, Joos van Cleve: The Complete Paintings, New Haven 2004,

pp. 131-135, cat. no. 32.

³ Lot 32. See Pilot Project: The Fate of the Adolphe Schloss Collection.