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Lot Essay
The composition is known in two other related works: in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (inv. no. 810), and in the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota (inv. no. SN 201). Both latter works were given by Max Friedländer (Early Netherlandish Painting, IX, part I, Leiden and Brussels, 1972, nos. C1 and C24 respectively) to Cornelis van Cleve; he separated the two within Cornelis' oeuvre, however, noting that the Dresden picture was of an earlier date, perhaps even painted in his father's studio, before the latter's death in 1541.
The present work clearly derives from the Dresden picture: notably in the figure of Saint Joseph, the types of the two shepherds looking on in the background, and the absence of the subsidiary figures surrounding the principals of the Sarasota picture. Also, however, they differ from the latter in the architectural elements, most significantly the background tower and the square column behind the Virgin, the former of which is there replaced by a (somewhat loosely-represented) view of the Colosseum and the latter of which bears a carved roundel deriving from Michelangelo's David beheading Goliath, the pendentive scene from the Sistine Chapel. The stylistic differences between the present work and the Dresden painting, however, suggest that they are the work of two different hands; given the probable dating of the latter, it is likely that the present work was painted contemporaneously by a second hand within Joos's studio.
The focal scene of all three compositions derives from Raphael. As noted by Larry Silver (Catalogue of The Flemish and Dutch Paintings 1400-1900. The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 1980, under no. 10), the motif of the Madonna in profile unveiling the reclining Child, employed most famously in the Madonna of the Diadem in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 1497), goes back to two sketches by Raphael: in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. 564) and in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. 502E). The direct source for the present composition, however, is likely to be the large, squared tapestry cartoon, based on Raphael's conception, by Thomas Vincidor in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 4269). Vincidor had been commissioned by Pope Leo X, to prepare cartoons for tapestries to be woven in Brussels for the Sala di Costantino and the Sala del Concistoro in the Vatican, and for that purpose took the cartoon himself to Flanders in 1520.
The present work clearly derives from the Dresden picture: notably in the figure of Saint Joseph, the types of the two shepherds looking on in the background, and the absence of the subsidiary figures surrounding the principals of the Sarasota picture. Also, however, they differ from the latter in the architectural elements, most significantly the background tower and the square column behind the Virgin, the former of which is there replaced by a (somewhat loosely-represented) view of the Colosseum and the latter of which bears a carved roundel deriving from Michelangelo's David beheading Goliath, the pendentive scene from the Sistine Chapel. The stylistic differences between the present work and the Dresden painting, however, suggest that they are the work of two different hands; given the probable dating of the latter, it is likely that the present work was painted contemporaneously by a second hand within Joos's studio.
The focal scene of all three compositions derives from Raphael. As noted by Larry Silver (Catalogue of The Flemish and Dutch Paintings 1400-1900. The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 1980, under no. 10), the motif of the Madonna in profile unveiling the reclining Child, employed most famously in the Madonna of the Diadem in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 1497), goes back to two sketches by Raphael: in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. no. 564) and in the Uffizi, Florence (inv. no. 502E). The direct source for the present composition, however, is likely to be the large, squared tapestry cartoon, based on Raphael's conception, by Thomas Vincidor in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 4269). Vincidor had been commissioned by Pope Leo X, to prepare cartoons for tapestries to be woven in Brussels for the Sala di Costantino and the Sala del Concistoro in the Vatican, and for that purpose took the cartoon himself to Flanders in 1520.