The Virgin and Child

The panel consists of two vertically grained oak planks (12.5 and 29.5 cm), 0.4-1.0 cm thick, and is bevelled on all sides. The four blocks along the join on the back side of the support are later additions. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1506. The panel could have been ready for use by 1517, but a date in or after 1531 is more likely. The white ground was applied up to the edges of the panel. A second ground layer or 'imprimatura' and the paint layers were, however, applied when the support was fixed into the frame as there are remains of a barbe and unpainted edges on all sides. The underdrawing consists of contour lines and hatchings for the figures and architectural setting in a dry medium, probably black chalk (fig. a, fig. b). The Virgin and Child were reserved. The paint layers were applied in the traditional precise painting technique of the Flemish Primitives, with thick glazes in the shadows. The underdrawing for the architectural ornaments were followed precisely in the paint layers. Some small alterations can be noted in the outline of the folds and body of the Christ Child, who was moved a little to right relative to the reserve during the painting process.

Good. There are some small losses along the join, and raised paint in the red dress. The varnish is slightly discoloured.

…; from the dealer John Smith (1771-1855), £ 250, to Thomas Baring (1799-1873) 2nd Baronet of Northbrook, London and Stratton Park, Hampshire, 1851;¹¹Smith Archives (Victoria & Albert Museum), 86 CC 4, p. 153; with thanks to E.S. Bergvelt; coll. cat. Northbrook 1889, no. 4. his nephew, Thomas George Baring (1826-1904), 1st Earl of Northbrook, Stratton Park, Hampshire;²²Coll. cat. Northbrook 1889, p. ix. his son, Francis George Baring (1850-1929), 2nd Earl of Northbrook, 42 Portland Square, London, or Stratton Park, Hampshire; from whom to the dealers Knoedler and P. & D. Colnaghi, London, 1929;³³Broos in coll. cat. The Hague 1993, p. 150. from P. & D. Colnaghi, London, 6,000 gns, Isaäc de Bruijn (1872-1953), Spiez and Muri, near Bern, 1929;⁴⁴Note RMA. donated to the museum by Isaäc de Bruijn and his wife, Johanna Geertruida de Bruijn-van der Leeuw (1877-1960), Spiez and Muri, near Bern, 1949, but kept in usufruct;⁵⁵Note RMA. transferred to the museum, 1961

ObjectNumber: SK-A-4045

Credit line: De Bruijn-van der Leeuw Bequest, Muri, Switzerland

The Virgin, seated in a niche that fills the picture surface and is lavishly decorated with Renaissance motifs, is supporting the almost nude Christ Child on her right arm. He has wrapped his left arm around her neck and is cupping her chin with his right hand as he presses his face up against hers. The poses and interaction of the Virgin and Child are a late reflection of the so-called Madonna of Cambrai, a Byzantine type known as the Elousa, or Virgin of Tenderness, which was regarded as a work by St Luke himself in the second half of the 15th century.¹¹¹¹Illustrated in New York 2004, p. 583; see also The Virgin and Child from the workshop of Bernard van Orley (SK-A-2567).

Before acquiring its present attribution to Isenbrant the panel went under the name of Hans Memling when it was in the Baring collection.¹²¹²Broos in coll. cat. The Hague 1993, p. 147. Waagen then gave it to Jan Jansz Mostaert,¹³¹³Waagen 1854, II, p. 182. whom he also believed to have painted the Diptych with Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows of 1521,¹⁴¹⁴Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, and Bruges, Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk; illustrated in Bruges 1998, I, pp. 128-29. which was made the core work of Isenbrant’s oeuvre in 1902. Around 1900, when the panel belonged to the Earl of Northbrook, it was loaned out to several exhibitions of old masters and displayed under different names. Weale labelled it as anonymous in the important exhibition of Flemish Primitives in Bruges in 1902,¹⁵¹⁵Bruges 1902, p. 64, no. 152. which is when Hulin de Loo first attributed the diptych and the Rijksmuseum panel to Isenbrant.¹⁶¹⁶Hulin de Loo 1902, p. 122. Fry and Brockwell attributed it to Jan Gossart at an exhibition in 1911; see London 1911, pp. 80-82, no. 152.

Friedländer considered that the painting belonged to the core of Isenbrant’s oeuvre,¹⁷¹⁷Friedländer 1903a, p. 24, no. 152; Friedländer XI, 1934, pp. 83-84. remarking that the artist was at his best with such a restricted formal idiom and general iconographic theme. Wilson alone questions the attribution to Isenbrant, along with that of the rest of the oeuvre given to him.¹⁸¹⁸Wilson 1998, pp. 108-09. The painting has the distinctive soft but rather expressionless figure types, with a manner tending towards sfumato that is found in the works attributed to Isenbrant. Another typical feature is the detailed, decorative Renaissance ornamentation.

As regards the archaistic or Renaissance formal vocabulary, reference has been made both to possible classical sources,¹⁹¹⁹Borchert in Bruges 1998, II, p. 81. as well as to possible models in Lombardic Renaissance architecture.²⁰²⁰Vandevivere/Périer-D’Ieteren 1973, pp. 17-30; many of the motifs are to be found on the facade of the Certosa of Pavia. Although the individual ornamental motifs in the Rijksmuseum painting - candelabra, medallions, ram’s heads and horns - can be associated with that building, there are no direct models in Italian prints.²¹²¹Both Périer-D’Ieteren 1989a, pp. 16-18, and Borchert in Bruges 1998, II, p. 81, allude to such an influence, but do not go into details.

There are three closely related variants of the Amsterdam Virgin and Child. One is slightly larger, measuring 77.5 x 56 cm,²²²²Switzerland, private collection; illustrated in Périer-D’Ieteren 1989a, p. 6, pl. 1. but the other two are much smaller.²³²³Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, and New Orleans, New Orleans Museum of Art; illustrated in ENP XI, 1974, nos. 174, 174a, pl. 132. The architecture is very similar in these versions, but the Virgin is of a different type, since she is suckling the Child.²⁴²⁴The figure group in the version in Switzerland was borrowed directly from Hans Memling; see Périer-D’Ieteren 1989a, pp. 5-8.

The underdrawings of the variants in Switzerland and Madrid have punched dots that betray the use of pricked cartoons,²⁵²⁵Périer-D’Ieteren 1989a, p. 14. but these are absent in the Amsterdam underdrawing. However, the angular contours and thin lines in the underdrawing of the Virgin’s gown (fig. a) could point to the use of a traced cartoon. The architecture and the ornaments, however, appear to have been drawn freehand (fig. b), unlike the similar ornamentation and ram’s heads on the Virgin’s throne in the panel with The Virgin of the Seven Sorrows from the 1521 diptych. There, as in the rest of the painting, one sees the dotted lines characteristic of the use of a pricked cartoon.²⁶²⁶See Borchert in Bruges 1998, II, pp. 69-71.

As Friedländer had already remarked, the Amsterdam Virgin and Child is qualitatively one of the best of all the paintings attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant. The Virgin has the refinement and monumental qualities of her counterpart in the 1521 diptych, and is placed convincingly within the Renaissance architecture. That is not the case with the smaller repetitions mentioned above, in which her rather wooden figure has been pasted into the scene. These are hackwork from the artist’s studio.

The date of the painting is always placed around 1520-30 on stylistic grounds, but the dendrochronology would permit a date in the following decade.²⁷²⁷See Technical notes.

(Lars Hendrikman/Jan Piet Filedt Kok)

Waagen 1854, II, p. 182 (as Jan Jansz Mostaert); Bruges 1902, p. 64, no. 152 (as Anonymous); Hulin de Loo 1902, p. 122; Friedländer 1903a, p. 24; London 1911, pp. 80-82 (as Jan Gossaert); Friedländer XI, 1934, pp. 81, 83-84, 135, no. 173; Tóth-Ubbens in coll. cat. The Hague 1968, p. 29, no. 958; ENP XI, 1974, pp. 48-49, 87, no. 173; Périer-D’Ieteren 1989b, pp. 16-18; Broos in coll. cat. The Hague 1993, pp. 147-52; Borchert in Bruges 1998, II, pp. 80-81, no. 48, with earlier literature; Wilson 1998, pp. 108-09, 203-04; Kloek in Van Os ‘et al.’ 2000, pp. 114-25, no. 36; Van Wegen 2005, pp. 51-53

1976, p. 296, no. A 4045 (as Isenbrant)

L. Hendrikman, 2010, 'attributed to Adriaen Isenbrant, The Virgin and Child, Bruges, c. 1530 - c. 1540', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200110492