Lot 17: Studio of Rogier van der Weyden Tournai circa 1399 - 1464 Brussels , The Virgin and Child

oil on panel

measurements note 43.4 by 34 cm.

THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN

This popular composition of the Virgin and Child is derived from the Madonna in the famous St. Luke drawing the Madonna, known in several versions of which the prime work is likely to be the one in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (inv. no. 93.153). In the Boston painting she is holding the Child with one hand and holding her bare breast with the other, while in the present painting she is holding the Child with both hands. Many versions exist, of which the closest to the present painting seems to be the one in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. 667), which, according to Friedländer is by a highly competent follower purely in Van der Weyden's style (see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. II, Leiden/Brussels 1967, pp. 81 and 83, cat. nos. 106c, 108 and 108a, reproduced plates 118 and 121).