Christ and the Centurion of Capernaum; The Last Supper on the reverse - a wing of an altarpiece

The present unpublished picture is an addition to the work of the so-called Master of the Antwerp Adoration, whose identity has not yet been established. The present lot could be the work of a group of artists working in the same studio. M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, XI, 1974, p.72, established an oeuvre for the artist, whom he named after the triptych of the Adoration of the Magi in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp (Friedländer, n^.46, plate 49-50). The present panel is to be compared with a set of panels in the Wallraf-Richartz Musuem, Cologne (I.Heller, H.Vey, Katalog der deutschen und niederländischen Gemälde bis 1550, 1969, pp.15-17, inv.n^.s436-443) and those, formerly in the Germaniches National Museum, Nurnberg, destroyed in World War II (Friedländer, n^.54, plate 54-55), which formed the wings of the altarpiece in the Kreuzbrüderkirche, Cologne. It is also to be compared with the panel of Maria Salomé and her family in the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, inv.n^.5081 (Catalogus Oude Meesters, 1988, p.452, with ill.) and the picture of the Holy Family in the Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (P.van den Brink, "Da Josef Timmert", in: Album Disciplinorum Dr. J.A. van Asperen de Boer, 1997

The subject, a Roman centurion beseeching Christ to heal his servant boy, is taken from Matthew 8:5-13 and Luke 7:1-10.

We are grateful to Drs. P. van den Brink and Dr. J. Nieuwstraten for their help in cataloguing this lot.