School of Bruges, early 16th Century

With Frank T. Sabin, London, 1953;
Anonymous sale, Lucerne, Fischer, 13 November 2000, lot 1001 (as Jan Provoost).

Ultimately, albeit loosely, inspired by the central panel of Hugo van der Goes' famous 'Portinari Altarpiece',¹ this meditative panel shows close affinities with the school of Bruges in the first quarter of the 16th century. Van der Goes' influence in that city lasted through the early decades of the 16th century right from the moment of his summons there in 1468 on the occasion of the marriage of Charles the Bold to Margaret of York. To van der Goes is owed not only the figural arrangment but also the unusual perspective. The tower and city seen through the archway beyond the Annunciation to the shepherds seems to be of the artist's imagination and cannot be pertinently connected with any known edifices of the time, either in the southern or northern Netherlands.

1. See M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. IV, Leiden 1969, pp. 69-70, reproduced plates 14-15.