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Lot Essay
This picture was listed by von Baldass and Friedländer, loc. cit., as the prime version of a composition of circa 1520. A small group of adapted versions are known, generally regarded as of workshop quality: in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Troyes; in the Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels; and in the Galleria di Palazzo Bianco, Genoa. All of the above are differenced by the absence of the foreground ledge, and by the Virgin's gaze being directed downwards towards the Child rather than forwards and out of the picture; in addition, the latter two depict, on the right, very similar landscape backgrounds seen from a crenellated ledge and, in the left background, a column.
The remarkable collection of paintings, sculpture and works of art collected by Richard von Kaufmann, that was dispersed in a series of sales in late 1917, and that included a highly significant group of early European paintings, was described by Wilhelm von Bode, the Head of the Royal German Museums as probably unsurpassed within Germany. It included such works as the Mystical Baptism of Christ with Fourteen Holy Helpers by the Master of the St. Bartholomew Altar (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art), a Nativity by Gerard David (Cleveland, Museum of Fine Arts), Maerten van Heemskerk's Jupiter and Samson slaying the Philistines (both Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum), Gossaert's Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Wtewael's Adoration of the Shepherds (both Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), two pinnacles of The Annunciation to the Virgin by Paolo Veneziano and Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of a Jeweller (all Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum), as well as paintings by such artists as Benvenuto di Giovanni, Botticelli, Van der Weyden, Jacob van Amsterdam, Holbein and Cranach.
The remarkable collection of paintings, sculpture and works of art collected by Richard von Kaufmann, that was dispersed in a series of sales in late 1917, and that included a highly significant group of early European paintings, was described by Wilhelm von Bode, the Head of the Royal German Museums as probably unsurpassed within Germany. It included such works as the Mystical Baptism of Christ with Fourteen Holy Helpers by the Master of the St. Bartholomew Altar (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art), a Nativity by Gerard David (Cleveland, Museum of Fine Arts), Maerten van Heemskerk's Jupiter and Samson slaying the Philistines (both Oberlin, Allen Memorial Art Museum), Gossaert's Saint Catherine of Alexandria, Wtewael's Adoration of the Shepherds (both Oxford, Ashmolean Museum), two pinnacles of The Annunciation to the Virgin by Paolo Veneziano and Lorenzo Lotto's Portrait of a Jeweller (all Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum), as well as paintings by such artists as Benvenuto di Giovanni, Botticelli, Van der Weyden, Jacob van Amsterdam, Holbein and Cranach.