Lot 4: The Virgin and Child

The Master of the Legend of Saint Mary Magdalene (active Brussels, c. 1490-c. 1526) The Virgin and Child inscribed ‘O maria O regina simplex casta columbina que es mundi medicina ad medendum me festina’ (on the frame) on gold ground panel, in an integral frame 16 5/8 x 12 3/8 in. (42.3 x 31.4 cm.)

42.3 x 31.4 cm.

Munich, Alte Pinakothek, September-October 1928. Toledo, Ohio, Museum of Art, French and Flemish Primitives, 3 November-15 December 1935, no. 25.

(Possibly) F. Winker, Die Altniederlandische Malerei, Berlin 1921, p. 371, as the Master of the Miracle of the Loaves. J. Tombu, ‘Le Maitre de la Légende de Marie-Madeleine’, Gazette des Beaux Arts, November 1929, pp. 259 and 263-4, illustrated. Pantheon, VII, 5, 1931, p. 218. M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, XII, p. 90, no. 5, pl. 4.

Hohenzollern collection, Sigmaringen, no. 31. Abel collection, Cologne, 1863, no. 13, as a triptych. with A.S. Drey, New York, 1928, as a triptych. with M. Knoedler & Co., New York, 1938, as a triptych. Archibald and Margaret Z. van Beuren, Rhode Island; Christie’s, New York, 11 January 1989, lot 183, as a triptych. Anonymous sale; Christie’s, London, 7 July 2000, lot 24, when acquired by the present owner.

Finely executed and intimately sized, this tender depiction of the Virgo Lactans, or nursing mother, derives from Rogier van der Weyden’s celebrated Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts). The Rogierian prototype focused on the legendary apparition of the Virgin and Child to the Evangelist Luke, who reputedly painted the first portrait ever made of the holy Mother and Son. This small devotional panel, like many produced in early sixteenth-century Netherlands, seems to be just the result of Luke’s artistic endeavour: the faithful record of his vision, made permanent for the contemplative needs of Renaissance laymen. Blurring the boundaries between fictive and real space, the Virgin’s sleeve falls over the lower edge of the picture onto the frame. This engaging trompe l’oeil already had a famous precedent with Hans Memling’s Diptych of Marten van Nieuwenhove (Bruges, Memlingmuseum, Sint-Janshospitaal). Reminiscent of the border from an illuminated manuscript, the elaborately decorated frame shows acanthus leaves and a banderole entwined around a pole that runs around all four sides. The scroll bears the words of an anthem sung on the day of the Assumption of the Virgin: ‘O maria O regina simplex casta columbina que es mundi medicina ad medendum me festina’, ‘Oh Mary, Oh queen, Simple chaste dove who art the medicine of the world, Hasten to cure me’. The prayer invoked the protection of the Virgin for both physical and spiritual health (C. Blume and G.M. Dreves, Analecta Hymnica Medii Aevi, XXXI, Leipzig, 1898, pp. 207-08). The panel was given to the elusive Master of the Magdalene Legend by Friedländer in 1926 (IV, p. 137), an attribution that has not been challenged since. The anonymous artist owes his name to a dismantled triptych illustrating the life of the eponymous saint (the panels can now be found in Budapest, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum; Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; Schwerin, Staatliches Museum; formerly Berlin, Kaiser Friedrich-Museum; and Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art). This master, active in Brussels, produced many devotional images of Mary, showing his characteristically smooth finish, soft complexions and angular drapery. At some point in its history, two shutters were attached to this panel, one depicting Saint Arnold of Liziwang and a donor, the other Saint Catherine. These wings, by a different hand, were subsequently removed.