Circle of Robert Campin Circa 1480

Germanishes Museum, Nuremburg, no. 65 (sale by exchange, 1923);
With Bohler and Steinmeyer, 1924;
Minneapolis Institute of Arts by 1927;
Sold to Julius Weitzner, New York-London;
Ambassador  W.J. Middendorf, USA, circa 1975-1989;
With Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York;
From whom acquired by the present collector, New York, in 1990.

New York, F. Kleinberger Galleries, Inc., Catalogue of a Loan Exhibition of Flemish Primitives in Aid of the Free Milk Fund for Babies, Inc., October-November 1929, no. 6;
Bruges, Groeningemuseum, Le Siècle des Primitifs flamands, June 26-September 11, 1960, no. 10;
Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts, Flanders in the Fifteenth Century: Art and Civilization, October-December 1960. 

M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Paintings, vol. II, Rogier van der Weyden and the Master of Flemalle, 1967 ed., p. 74, no. 74a, plate 101 (erroneously indicated as no. 74b in vol. XIV of Die Altniederlandsche Malerie, 1937);
Flanders in the Fifteenth Century, Detroit, October-December,  1960, no. 6, reproduced;
Le Siècle des Primitifs flamands, Exhibition Catalogue,  Groeningemuseum, Bruges June 26-September 11, 1960, no. 10;
D. Vandura, Nizozemske Slikarske Škole u Strassmayerovoj Galeriji, Zagreb 1988, reproduced in color, p. 168, under '1989';
M.W. Ainsworth, "The Virgin and Child in an Apse: Reconsidering a Campin Workshop Design", in Robert Campin, New Directions in Scholarship, ed. Susan Foister and Susie Nash 1996 (essays delivered as papers at the Robert Campin Symposium at the National Gallery, London, March 12-13, 1993), pp. 149-158, detail photographs and infrared reflectograms throughout the article, reproduced in color, p. XIV, plate 51.

The Virgin and Child in an Apse was one of the most popular images of the Netherlandish Renaissance, and versions and variations of it are numerous, attesting to its widespread desirability.  The original composition has generally been considered to have been invented by Robert Campin in the early part of the 15^th Century, and while copies were made into the 16^th Century in order to fulfill market demand, the present panel is among the very earliest of these, if indeed not the earliest, and as Maryan Ainsworth suggests in her extensive study on the present painting (see Literature), perhaps closest to Campin’s original prototype. 

It was not unusual for paintings of particular popularity or success to have been copied or interpreted several times, sometimes even after the master’s own lifetime.  This sustained long-term interest was often fueled by the image itself, particularly if it had attained iconic status.  The Marian cult in the early 1400s had continued in strength and had even been reinvigorated, so compositions such as the present one had a wide and sustained appeal.  The type of Virgin, suckling the Infant Christ, had venerable antecedents, back to the Byzantine tradition of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa (or Breast-feeding Virgin). The apse, the vestments of the Virgin and the angels, and even the manner in which the Infant is held all appear to have sacramental significance as well¹.  

The Virgin and Child in an Apse was one of these special cases, and Friedlander noted a number of replicas of the composition of varying levels of quality.  The versions that he considered the most representative of  Campin’s original show the Virgin as occupying a far larger space in the composition, and the point of view from above, with the apse behind flattened out as a result.  In fact, he singled out the present panel as most representative of this group, noting its quality: 

“Here one gets an inkling of the chiaroscuro effect, the luminosity of the white robe, the grandiose flow of the drapery, the archaic serenity of the composition and its main figure, who seems almost disembodied beneath her robes.  The association between mother and child is Eyckian in character.²" 

Later examples shift the viewpoint down and amplify the space in which the Virgin and her attending angels are placed, the sense of perspective and the rounded depth of the apse are more robustly portrayed.  There are sometimes decorative additions of flowers and other details as well.  Of this later group there are examples in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (inv. 458), and the Toledo Museum of Art, as well as others.  Later artists, such as Gerard David, Jan Provost, and Bernaert van Orley developed the composition further, retaining the central Virgin and Child and embellishing the background, sometimes adding angels and changing the architecture.  Some, such as a panel in the Art Institute, Chicago, attributed to Gerard David, flips the sense of the Virgin and Child while retaining the angels in the same position.

The earlier pictures of the Virgin and Child in an Apse, however, are much fewer in number, and in her lengthy study of the present panel, Ainsworth compares this work to another version in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York³.  Dendrochronological evidence suggests that the present panel would have been available to the artist from 1479, onwards, thus dating the picture to the last quarter of the 15^th Century⁴.  The Metropolitan painting was transferred to linen at some point in the past, and so was unable to be tested in this way.   

Infrared reflectography has also revealed some interesting data about the technique with which the image was painted.  Both the Metropolitan painting and the present panel display nearly identical preparatory underdrawing, with the figures blocked in and worked up with a brush, and the draperies and their shadows—commented upon by Friedlander in regard to this picture-- hatched to suggest form.  The present panel also displays a cross-hatching technique which is lacking in the Metropolitan’s picture, but used in also in another early version in the National Gallery, London.  Infrared also reveals, as is visible somewhat with the naked eye, the traces of a different composition which clearly was originally intended for the panel.  The figure of an angel pulling back a drapery is discernable at the left and the suggestion of a kneeling (donor?) figure can be seen at the right.   

X-ray examination also revealed other variations in the application of the paint layers, with the present panel displaying a more liberal use of lead white, sometimes mixed with other pigments.  This is more suggestive of the manner employed by artists in the final decades of the 15^th Century, and thus is entirely consistent with the age suggested by the dendrochronological evidence.  However, while some of these stylistic factors imply that the Metropolitan Virgin and Child in an Apse should date earlier than the present panel, others, particularly the compositional variations, suggest exactly the opposite.  As Ainsworth notes:

 “…If all of the examples in this series are compared, [this]…version exhibits the most compact composition with the figures placed closely together and completely filling up the space.   The subsequent development, beginning with the slight shift to the right of the harp-playing angel in the Metropolitan Museum painting, shows the figures becoming smaller in comparison to their surrounding space and the angels moving farther away form the Virgin.  These variations are the initial stages of an ongoing trend."⁵

1  See Ainsworth, op.cit. pp. 1490150. 

2  Friedlander, op.cit. p. 75; Friedlander tentatively dates the Campin composition to circa 1428; he later revised his dating to the first decade of the century (see “Über den Zwang der Ikonographischen Tradition in der Vlämischen Kunst,” The Art Quarterly, 1, 1938, p. 22.  A later version, but which is inscribed 1420, is in the Zagreb Museum, and suggests a dating of about this time.

3  The paintings have recently been hanging side by side in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gallery, on loan by the current owner.

4  Study by Dr. Peter Klein, University of Hamburg, dated May 22, 1991.

5  Ainsworth, op.cit., p. 155