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Lot Essay
This impressive and skillfully rendered set of panels is likely to have originally been part of a complex polyptych altarpiece, similar in size to the renowned Ghent Altarpiece by the van Eyck brothers. They would have formed part of the wings, and due to their orientation it is likely that these wings were multi-paneled, with one register placed above the other. The panels with the standing saints are likely to have been visible at the same time, framing a central carved or painted altarpiece.
Whilst they are not recorded in the encyclopedic volumes of Friedländer's Early Netherlandish Paintings, they can be associated with a number of works on the basis of stylistic comparison. A set of panels, also from a dismembered polyptych, given to The Master of Saint John the Evangelist (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco, inv. nos. PB156, 165, 187 and 195) is relatable with regards to some of the facial types, yet the landscape is not as elaborate and they probably slightly pre-date the present panels.
Peter van den Brink has suggested that these panels may be by the same hand as a panel in the Niedersächsische Landesgalerie, Hanover, showing a scene from the life of Saint George (M. Wolfson, Die deutschen und niederländischen Gemälde bis 1550, Hanover, 1992, p. 225, no. 94). Friedländer first tentatively attributed this panel to The Master of the Amsterdam Death of the Virgin, but later revised his opinion (in a letter of 1951) and instead connected it to Bruges and dated it to circa 1480-1500, a view that was repeated by Winkler in 1954 (ibid.). The landscape of these four panels also points to a Bruges and Ghent influence. The figure of Saint Andrew relies on the facial types of Hugo van der Goes, who was active in Ghent a few decades earlier. The inclusion of Saint Bavo furthermore links these panels to Ghent, since he was the Patron Saint predominately venerated in that city.
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert and Peter van den Brink for their assistance in cataloguing these panels.
Whilst they are not recorded in the encyclopedic volumes of Friedländer's Early Netherlandish Paintings, they can be associated with a number of works on the basis of stylistic comparison. A set of panels, also from a dismembered polyptych, given to The Master of Saint John the Evangelist (Genoa, Palazzo Bianco, inv. nos. PB156, 165, 187 and 195) is relatable with regards to some of the facial types, yet the landscape is not as elaborate and they probably slightly pre-date the present panels.
Peter van den Brink has suggested that these panels may be by the same hand as a panel in the Niedersächsische Landesgalerie, Hanover, showing a scene from the life of Saint George (M. Wolfson, Die deutschen und niederländischen Gemälde bis 1550, Hanover, 1992, p. 225, no. 94). Friedländer first tentatively attributed this panel to The Master of the Amsterdam Death of the Virgin, but later revised his opinion (in a letter of 1951) and instead connected it to Bruges and dated it to circa 1480-1500, a view that was repeated by Winkler in 1954 (ibid.). The landscape of these four panels also points to a Bruges and Ghent influence. The figure of Saint Andrew relies on the facial types of Hugo van der Goes, who was active in Ghent a few decades earlier. The inclusion of Saint Bavo furthermore links these panels to Ghent, since he was the Patron Saint predominately venerated in that city.
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert and Peter van den Brink for their assistance in cataloguing these panels.