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Lot Essay
The present composition is one of many studio versions of a lost original by Joos van Cleve, inspired by a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci. Several versions of this subject exist by artists in Van Cleve's studio: see, for example, M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, IX, Leiden, 1927, nos. 63a-c, e, i and k, pls. 78-79. One of these versions with a similar distant verdant landscape (Friedländer, op. cit, no. 63k) was sold in these rooms on 15 October 1992, lot 42 ($55,000).
An attribution to Cornelis van Cleve has been suggested (see, for example, the Virgin and Child in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; illustrated in Friedländer, op. cit., pl. 134, no. C.22).
An attribution to Cornelis van Cleve has been suggested (see, for example, the Virgin and Child in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich; illustrated in Friedländer, op. cit., pl. 134, no. C.22).