Virgin and Child (Maria Lactans) - Flemish school circa 1560

Oil on copper. Flemish school, circa 1560, follower of Gérard David (c. 1460 - 1523).
In this gentle depiction, the Virgin gently bends her head towards her son, who is about to take her breast. With a rattle in his hand, he looks off into the distance, while his mother looks on with concern. Is she already contemplating the many torments her son will have to endure? Despite its sacred nature, the tenderness emanating from this scene anchors it in everyday life, allowing each devotee to project himself into it. This iconography echoes Christ's dual nature, both divine and human, and recalls the Virgin's nurturing and protective role, extended to the whole of humanity. Spontaneously arousing piety, this work retains an element of medieval sensibility, which was smoothly succeeded by the Northern Renaissance.

Our painting should be seen in the context of Gérard David's body of work, whose small-scale representations of the Virgin were very popular in the context of the devotio moderna. His Repos pendant la fuite en Egypte (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), painted in the 1510s, features very similar figures. However, his Madonna and Child painted in 1520 (also in the Metropolitan Museum of Art) offers an even more convincing analogy, except that our version transports the figures into a more intimate setting. Nevertheless, the execution of our painting on copper plate places us after 1560, the date from which the use of this type of support became widespread. In this respect, the more vibrant colors of our painting, in both skin tones and fabrics, corroborate a work from the second half of the 16th century. Red dress and blue cloak were indeed the hues with which Flemish painters of the mid-sixteenth century, such as Ambrosius Benson, dressed the Virgin, unlike the Primitives whose palette was cooler.

We have chosen to present this delicate maternity in a luxurious cassetta frame in blackened and gilded wood, custom-made by an Italian master craftsman.
Dimensions: 29.5 x 22 cm when viewed - 55 x 46 cm with frame
Sold with invoice and certificate of appraisal.

Biography: Gérard David (Oudewater c. 1460 - Bruges, August 13, 1523) was the last of the Flemish Primitives, often considered the successor to Jan van Eyck and Hugo van der Goes. Little is known about his early life, other than that he originated in the Northern Netherlands and trained in Haarlem. In 1484, he joined the guild of image-makers and saddlers in Bruges. Despite the city's decline at the end of the 15th century, he ran a prosperous workshop there from 1495, employing several journeymen, foremost among them Ambrosius Benson. In 1499, after completing his famous Judgment of Cambysus (Musée Groeninge, Bruges), he was appointed first assistant to the guild and became its dean in 1501. David then had a second workshop outside the walls of Bruges, which continued to operate after his death until 1524, when it was taken over by Joos Wachtenpert. Subsequently, many artists, both in Antwerp (Joos van Cleve) and Bruges (Adriaen Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson), reappropriated his iconographic innovations.

Bibliography :

- AINSWORTH, Maryan Wynn (ed.), Gerard David: Purity of Vision in an Age of Transition, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.
- AINSWORTH, Maryan Wynn (ed.), From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (cat. exp. New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 22, 1998 - January 3, 1999), H.N. Abrams, 1998.
- REAU, Louis, Iconographie de l'art chrétien, 3 vols. Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1958.
- VAN MIERGROET, Hans J, Gérard David, Antwerp, Fonds Mercator, 1989.