Follower of Rogier van der Weyden

Princess Bemsched, Paris;
S. Newberger, New York;
The Roerich Museum, New York, until 1930;
Their sale, New York, American Art Association, 27-28 March 1930, lot 152, to Rougeron;
Maurice J. Rougeron;
By whom anonymously sold, New York, 28 November 1951, lot 62, to La Fuente;
Francesco Gonzalez La Fuente, Mexico;
Thence by descent to the present owner.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The painting is in very robust and healthy state. This panel has a vertical canvas reinforcement running vertically through the middle of the panel supporting the original join, which runs to the right of Christ's head. The paint layer is dirty yet retains an attractive patina, although the varnish is rather glossy. There are some retouches addressing the original panel join and also few small spots which have been applied to the lighter colors, in Christ's figure particularly; these retouches have discolored and could be reexamined. However, despite the fact that several of these retouches are visible to the left of the figure of Christ, we are comfortable with the condition.
"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 beautifully preserved work derives from a lost original by Rogier van der Weyden. It is known in many variants, all of which have been ascribed to later, mostly sixteenth-century followers of Rogier, or in certain cases to the Master of the Holy Blood (active circa 1530).¹ One such example of the latter type can be found today in the central panel of a triptych in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 17.187a-c). Dirk de Vos argues that no extant fifteenth-century examples of the present work exist, making an identification of a prime composition from Rogier's lifetime increasingly difficult.²  He points to two compositional types from which an original may be based. The first being the present type, and a second slightly reduced composition with only three figures, of which only ten known copies exist.³  Despite the fact that most scholars place the present composition as the primary type from which an autograph version may have existed, De Vos places the reduced version ahead of the present type in its likelihood of repeating an original. This argument however, is difficult to maintain given the limited number of examples available to scholars.

1. For a more complete list of variants, see M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Leiden 1971, vol. II, pp, 78-80, plates 111-12.
2. D. de Vos, Rogier van der Weyden, Antwerp 1999, pp. 368-9.
3. Ibid. See fig. B11A.