拍品專文
Stephenson Clarke (1824-1891) built up the Northumberland domestic coal business which he inherited from his father in 1849 to become the largest in the United Kingdom. His art collection, carefully chosen with the assistance of Martin Colnaghi, seems to have been formed almost entirely in the 1880s and has been largely dispersed in recent years. Clarke showed a particular fondness for early Netherlandish Madonnas: he owned one by Hans Memling (D. De Vos, Hans Memling. The Complete Works, London, 1994, pp. 270-1, no. 75, illustrated in colour) and another by an artist in the circle of Dieric Bouts, a Virgin and Child in a Hortus Conclusus sold in these Rooms on 28 November 1975, lot 38, and subsequently 29 June 1979, lot 93.