The Virgin seated on a low Wall picking a Flower for the Child, a brocade behind and an extensive landscape in the distance

Details

Circle of Dieric Bouts (active c. 1448-d. 1475)
The Virgin seated on a low Wall picking a Flower for the Child, a brocade behind and an extensive landscape in the distance
oil on panel
10¾ x 8½in. (27.2 x 21.5cm.) including a 0.6cm. strip added at the right

Provenance

Acquired by Stephenson Clarke (1824-1891) and by descent.

Literature

M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, III, Leyden, 1934, p. 125, no. 86, pl. LXXII, as Follower of Bouts. M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, III, ed. N. Veronée-Verhaegen, Leyden and Brussels, 1968, p. 71, no. 86, pl. 95, as Follower of Dieric Bouts.

Exhibited

London, Royal Academy, Works by the Old Masters, Jan.-March 1891, no. 160, as Hugo van der Goes.
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Early Flemish Painting, 1892, no. 16.
London, New Gallery, Winter Exhibition, 1899-1900, no. 65, as Hugo van der Goes.
Bruges, Les Primitifs flamands, 1902, no. 54, as Hugo van der Goes. London, Guildhall, Examples of the Flemish and Belgian Schools, 1906, no. 31, as Hugo van der Goes.
London, Royal Academy, Flemish Art 1300-1700, 5 Dec. 1953-6 March 1954, no. 22, as Attributed to Hugo van der Goes.
Bruges, Musée Communal Groeninge, L'Art flamand dans les Collections britanniques et de la Galerie Nationale de Victoria, 1 Aug.-16 Sept. 1956, no. 17, as Albert Bouts.
Eastbourne, Treasures of Sussex, 1959.
Ghent, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Fleurs et Jardins dans l'Art Flamand, 10 April-26 June 1960, no. 24, as Albert Bouts.

Lot Essay

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.

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