Madonna on the throne with child, Flanders 6th Century

'Master of the parrot' (a painter active in Antwerp in the early 16th century, whose name refers to the parrot who always occurs in his paintings) - follower of

Madonna on the throne with child
(With the coat of arms of the client family in the upper part of the composition)

Oil on the table
101 x 62 cm. - In frame 114 x 76 cm.

The beautiful proposed work explains the typical iconographic characters of the painter called 'Master of the parrot', a conventional name used by critics to define an anonymous Dutch author of the 16th century.

More precisely, it is a painter of the southern Netherlands, active in Antwerp around 1530-50, so defined for the unmistakable parrot who often appears in his works of him. In religious iconography the parrot has often been used as a Marian symbol, as it was widespread that its most common verse was "Ave", that is, the greeting of the Archangel Gabriele to Mary at the time of the Annunciation.

Today the idea according to which the name 'master of the parrot' has not referred to a single painter, but rather a group that, based on the stylistic characters, carried out their training at the workshop of Pieter Coecke Van Aelst (Aalst (Aalst is widespread. 1502 - Brussels 1550), creating devotion paintings intended for a bourgeois client and concentrating their activity on a specific topic particularly requested by the contemporary market.

By way of example we can mention the Virgin with the San Diego Museum of Art child where the figures, like our own, are in line, With the mannerist taste for the elegant body proportions that exceed reality, with elements such as tapered finger, wide face and thin nose. These characters also betray the influence of active artists in the region such as Joos Van Cleve, Ambrosius Benson and Jan Gossaert, from whose works he must necessarily have taken inspiration.

As we can well detect from our painting, performed by a talented follower on commission of the family whose noble coat of arms is affixed to the upper part, the works of these artists were characterized by the unmistakable reception of Italian Renaissance painting, particularly visible in the way in which the Child lies on his mother and still in the compositional choice of inserting a landscape glimpse visible through a window. Even the technique of the nuanced, of Leonardo Memoria, attests to the lasting Italian influence in these works.

The state of conservation of the table is good, perfectly restored; There is a slight crack, visible in the lower part of the canvas in conjunction with the edge of the table, stabilized, and which affects minimally in reading the work.
It presents an ancient park performed professionally.
The painting is completed by a pleasant golden frame.

It is our duty to warn that, given the delicacy of some particular ancient frames, there is the possibility that during transport, small golden lesions may occur, although the packaging are performed with the utmost care.