School of Antwerp, 1532

Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 5 March 1920, lot 77, to Wheeler for £273.00 (as B. van Orley);
Frederick, 2nd Baron Hesketh (1916-1955);
Thence by family descent.
.

G. Marlier, Pieter Coecke d'Alost, Brussels 1966, p. 251 (as 'attributed by some to the Master of the Parrot').

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on an oak panel that has been cradled probably towards the end of the nineteenth century. There appear to be two joints and one fairly short old crack running down for about four inches from the top left into the garland. Parts of the joint to the left of centre has opened slightly in the past, with a little superficial old retouching down the central red drapery and a narrow line of more recent retouching down through the hand and the ledge at the base. There is scarcely any retouching along the second joint to the right of centre. Two other little recent retouchings can be seen under UV near the lower hand and a few little touches by the shadowy side of the nose. In the upper right background curtain there has been some slightly ridged paint down the grain sometimes with a tiny lost flake and an occasional brief line of old retouching, but any raised paint is now stable. There are one or two little greyish old retouchings in the sky, seemingly superficial. The varnish is yellowed and old, and probably dates back to the time when the cradle was added, but there appears otherwise to have been minimal intervention throughout the life of the painting. The remarkable condition has allowed such fragile details as the original film of madder glazing over the gold leaf of the carnations the Magdalen is holding to be preserved intact, as well as the beautifully crisp lead tin yellow detail in her golden jar, the tasselled cushion and embroidered dress. The red drapery is exceptionally well preserved as is the distinctive clarity in the modelling of the hands, and the depth of the shadows throughout. One patch in the green glaze of the curtain behind the head may be fractionally thin, as is possibly the side of the nose, but these are marginal imperfections in an almost immaculately unworn painting. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This enigmatic yet sumptuous painting was probably painted in Antwerp and exists in another version, also dated 1532, in Brussels, Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts¹, which scholars acknowledge to be of inferior quality to the present work. The two pictures are similar in every compositional detail except for slight differences in the landscape background visible through the window aperture at the left. Of the Brussels panel, Marlier argued that the colour palette and modelling of the flesh tones pointed to an artist in Jan Gossaert's circle while, however, noting that the Magdalene's features would point to Coecke van Aelst, Bernard van Orley and the Master with the Parrot. While the author of each version remains unidentified, the present work is likely to have been executed in Antwerp by a painter familiar with the work of both Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Jan Gossaert, the former who was resident in Antwerp in 1532 where he ran a studio, and the latter who died there in the same year.

1. inv. no. 48; reproduced in G. Marlier, under Literature, p. 251, fig. 195.