Lot 136: Two altar wings depicting a male donor with three sons and a female donor with two daughters, praying before a classical landscape

Attributed to Pieter Pourbus (Gouda 1523/24–1584 Bruges) Two altar wings depicting a male donor with three sons and a female donor with two daughters, praying before a classical landscape inscribed with both sitters' ages 'Æ.TATIS S.VÆ.5O' and 'Æ.TATIS S.VÆ.49' (on the bottom of each frame); and with the family crests of the husband and wife depicted on the reverse oil on panel 70.3 x 20.8 cm.; and 70.5 x 21 cm.

70.3 x 20.8 cm.

with Galerie Heinemann, Munich,1911, no. 50, as Luis de Vargas and as part of the original triptych. Pierre Verrier de Nice et R.-A. de Villepreux; their sale; J. Fiévez, Brussels, 8 December 1924, lot 128, as Antonio Moro and as part of the original triptych. with Carl Schneider Antiquitäten, Frankfurt, where purchased by P.A. Müller, 1962, as Joos van Cleve and without the central panel.

These two panels functioned as lateral wings of a now dismantled altarpiece. The missing central panel, depicting Mary of the Seven Sorrows, is documented in the photo-archive of M.J. Friedländer (fig. 1), who, on the reverse of a photograph, dated the triptych to 1564. A comparable triptych by Pourbus, dated 1556, is in the St. Jacob's church in Bruges; here also the central panel depicts Mary of the Seven Sorrows and lateral wings representing a male and a female donor with their family.