The Virgin and Child

The compositional type is the same as that of the right wing of David's diptych of Christ taking leave of His Mother and The Virgin and Child in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; that derives in turn from the eponymous diptych in the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel. It seems likely that the present work was also originally part of such a diptych. In both the Basel and Munich diptychs, the figures are presented against gold grounds, the popularity of which device had risen in the 1450s, when Canon Fursy du Bruilly bequeathed an Italo-Byzantine Virgin Glykophilousa to his chapter at Cambrai, which composition was imitated by such artists as Petrus Christus and Rogier van der Weyden. The early 1490s witnessed a revival of interest in these small panels with golden backgrounds and it is from that period that David's type date. The present work would appear to be by a contemporaneous artist clearly closely familiar with David's work, and may itself originally have had a gold background.