Lot 105: JAN MASSYS

THE PROPERTY OF A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION ANTWERP CIRCA 1509 - BEFORE 8 OCTOBER 1575 THE NATIVITY signed and dated lower right: IOANNES MASSIIS ALIAS QUINTENS 1552 oil on panel transferred to canvas 98.5 by 76.5 cm.; 38 3/4 by 30 1/8 in.

L. Buijnsters-Smets, Jan Massys: een Antwerps schilder uit de zestiende eeuw, Zwolle 1995, p. 179, cat no. 25.

Anonymous sale, London, Phillip's, 16 April 1991, lot 141, where incorrectly stated to be on linen; With Galerie Sepia, Paris 1994; Private collection, London; By whom donated to the present owners.

This is one of only two surviving dated works from the period between 1544 and 1555 when Jan Massys, along with his brother Cornelis and others, was exiled from Flanders on account of his heretical sympathies. The other painting, a Virgin and Child, is in the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa. Massys certainly spent some of his exile in Italy after 1549, but whether these two works were painted there is not known for certain.