Follower of Dieric Bouts

The Virgin and Child

Details

Follower of Dieric Bouts
The Virgin and Child
oil on marouflaged (?) panel
13¼ x 8.5/8 in. (33.6 x 21.9 cm.)

Provenance

Baron d'Albénas, Montpellier, 1902.
F. Engel-Gros; sale Georges Petit, Paris, 30 May 1921, lot 3, as Bouts.
The Estate of Florence J. Gould; Sotheby's, New York, 25 April (=2nd day) 1985, lot 62 (sold for $60,500).
Kofler-Truniger collection, Lucern.

Literature

M.J. Friedländer, Ausstellungen. Die Brgger Leihausstellung von 1902, Repertorium fr Kunstwissenschaft, XXVI, 1903, p. 71. R.F. Winkler, 'Die Nordfranzösische Malerei im 15. Jahrhundert und ihr Verhältnis zur Altniederländischen Malerei', Belgische Kunstdenkmäler, I, 1923, p. 274-275, fig. 272.
M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, III, Dierick Bouts und Joos van Gent, Leyden, 1934, Verzeichnis D (works of followers), p. 127, no. 95.
W.R. Valentiner, Das unbekannte Meisterwerk in öffentlichen privaten Sammlungen, I, 1930, under no. 36.
W. Schoene, Dieric Bouts und sein Schule, Berlin & Leipzig, 1938, no. 146a.
H.B. Wehle and M. Salinger, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings, New York, 1947, pp. 46-7, under no. L44.23.18.
M. Davies, Les Primitifs Flamands, 3, The National Gallery London, Antwerp, I, 1953, p. 47 under no. 32.
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, III, Dieric Bouts and Joos van Gent, ed. N. Veronée-Verhaegen, Leyden, Brussels, 1968, Catalogue D (works of followers), no. 95 and pl. 98.
Mary Sprinson de Jesus, catalogue of the exhibition From Van Eyck to Brueghel, ed. M. W. Ainsworth and K. Christiansen, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1998, p. 230, under no. 52.

Exhibited

Bruges, Exposition des Primitifs flamands et d'Art Ancien, (catalogue by W.H. James Weale), 1902, no. 94, as Roger de la Pasture; Catalogue Critique (by G.H. de Loo), 1902, no. 94, as an anonymous Brabant artist, 2nd half of the 15th century, imitating Rogier van der Weyden and under the influence of Dieric Bouts.

Lot Essay

As Friedländer noted, the composition connects with the Virgin and Child by Dieric Bouts in the National Gallery, London. There the Child's hands are differently placed, and He is seated at a casement against a red velvet cloth of gold beside a window with a view of a town beyond. The composition recurs in the ex-Sigmaringen picture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Friedländer's revised view concerning the status of this was not adopted by Nicole Veronée-Verhaegen in her 1968 edition of Friedländer, where it is described as a 'close replica'. Noting that Winkler's 1923 attribution to Simon Marmion had not won support, Dirk de Vos, in a report dated 29 July 1986 (available to the purchaser), describes the present picture as a work by a Flemish follower of Dieric Bouts working circa 1475-1480. It would appear to be at least on a par with the Metropolitan picture - and Sprinson de Jesus (loc. cit.) refers to the present work as a 'second replica' - which has recently been regarded as 'Probably made in Bouts's workshop after his death' (which took place in 1475) (idem.).

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