The Virgin and Child

This panel relates to an oftrepeated composition of the Mother and Child by Bernard van Orley (c. 1488-1541), which appears to have been particularly popular in Bruges. Replicas are variously located in the County Museum, Los Angeles, the Gendebien collection, Brussels, and appeared on the art market at Heinemann, Munich, 1929, and A.S. Drey, Munich, 1935 (see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, VIII: Jan Gossart and Bernart van Orley, New York and Washington, 1972, pp. 109, 113, nos. 135a, 135b, 135c, 135d, Add. 166, pl. 116). The painter of the present work has amended the composition by placing a small bird behind the proper right shoulder of the Virgin.