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Lot Essay
This remarkable painting must be regarded as one of the most accomplished landscapes of the early sixteenth century. Although recalling the work of Joachim Patinir, its carefully observed and meticulously rendered detail shows the heightened realism evident in the work of the leading landscapists of the generation after Patinir, notably Lucas Gassel in Brussels and Herri Bles in Antwerp, but on a scale and to a degree that arguably even surpasses those two masters and that makes it remarkable that the anonymous artist's oeuvre and identity remain as yet largely undefined.
The master was first discussed in his own right by Faggin (loc. cit.), who grouped together a small number of landscapes that he believed to be by the same hand, which he termed 'Seguace B di Patinier'. One of those, and closely comparable with the present painting, is that in the small Rest on the Flight into Egypt now in the Prado, Madrid: both works share an undeniable closeness in the carefully delineated foreground and the ivy-clad tree in the centre of the composition, as well as in the partly-visible half-timbered houses. In addition to the Prado painting, Faggin ascribed the landscape in a Saint Hubert (Warsaw, National Gallery) to the group and, in an apparently later period of the artist's oeuvre, two further in compositions of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (see M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, XIII, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, no. 63, pl. 32, as by Herri met de Bles; the inclusion of both latter works in the group was questioned by Gibson, loc. cit.). One might also propose that the landscape in the Virgin and Child by Joos van Cleve in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York be included in the group, as well as possibly that in Van Cleve's Crucifixion with Saints and a Donor (which also shares with the present picture the unusual but beautifully observed motif of the doves flying around the buildings' roofs) in the same collection. The scale and predominance of the landscape in the present picture must make this one of the outstanding examples of the anonymous Master's evolving corpus.
As with the New York pictures, the figurative elements in the majority of the group are by Joos van Cleve and his circle. So for example those in the Prado painting are close to the Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (see M.J. Friedlander, ibid, IX, 1972, pl. 49), and those of the Virgin and Child in the present work to his Virgin and Child and Altarpiece of the Virgin Enthroned, both in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (ibid., pls. 39 and 77). The type used here for the figure of Saint Joseph is seen repeatedly in works by Van Cleve, such as the Adoration of the Magi in Dresden (ibid., no. 27, pl. 49). The evidence of Van Cleve's hand in the figure types gives a date for the group contemporaneous with the latter's activity, circa 1520-40.
The master was first discussed in his own right by Faggin (loc. cit.), who grouped together a small number of landscapes that he believed to be by the same hand, which he termed 'Seguace B di Patinier'. One of those, and closely comparable with the present painting, is that in the small Rest on the Flight into Egypt now in the Prado, Madrid: both works share an undeniable closeness in the carefully delineated foreground and the ivy-clad tree in the centre of the composition, as well as in the partly-visible half-timbered houses. In addition to the Prado painting, Faggin ascribed the landscape in a Saint Hubert (Warsaw, National Gallery) to the group and, in an apparently later period of the artist's oeuvre, two further in compositions of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg, and the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen (see M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, XIII, Leiden and Brussels, 1975, no. 63, pl. 32, as by Herri met de Bles; the inclusion of both latter works in the group was questioned by Gibson, loc. cit.). One might also propose that the landscape in the Virgin and Child by Joos van Cleve in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York be included in the group, as well as possibly that in Van Cleve's Crucifixion with Saints and a Donor (which also shares with the present picture the unusual but beautifully observed motif of the doves flying around the buildings' roofs) in the same collection. The scale and predominance of the landscape in the present picture must make this one of the outstanding examples of the anonymous Master's evolving corpus.
As with the New York pictures, the figurative elements in the majority of the group are by Joos van Cleve and his circle. So for example those in the Prado painting are close to the Rest on the Flight into Egypt in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (see M.J. Friedlander, ibid, IX, 1972, pl. 49), and those of the Virgin and Child in the present work to his Virgin and Child and Altarpiece of the Virgin Enthroned, both in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (ibid., pls. 39 and 77). The type used here for the figure of Saint Joseph is seen repeatedly in works by Van Cleve, such as the Adoration of the Magi in Dresden (ibid., no. 27, pl. 49). The evidence of Van Cleve's hand in the figure types gives a date for the group contemporaneous with the latter's activity, circa 1520-40.