The Holy Family with music-making angels, a city beyond

We are grateful to Peter van den Brink for noting that the composition of the present picture is taken from the central compartment of the triptych of The Holy Family with Saints Catherine and Barbara in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon (see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, VIII, Leiden, 1972, p. 90, no. 1, pls. 1-3). The attribution of that work has been extensively debated as a putative early work by Jan Gossaert (c. 1478-1572), made before his trip to Italy with Philip of Burgundy. However, that attribution has recently been questioned, partly on the basis of stylistic development and, more recently, as a result of dendrochronological analysis, making an attribution to Gossaert unlikely. The Lisbon triptyich is in turn based (in reverse) on the large triptych by the Master of Frankfurt (1460-1520), divided between the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Mauritshuis, The Hague. As Peter van den Brink comments, it would seem that drawings have played a clear role in the transmission of this particular composition. Whilst the present picture evidently related to the Lisbon triptych in terms of composition, stylistically it is quite distinct and, for the present, an attribution remains elusive.