Gillis Mostaert

With Georg Ernst Harzen, Hamburg until 1826 when acquired by the ancestors of the present owner.

K. Michiels, Een bijdrage tot de studie van de schilderijen van Gillis Mostaert (1528-1598), unpublished dissertation, Brussels 1997-8, cat. no. 39;

E. Mai (ed.), Gillis Mostaert (1528-1598.  Ein Antwerpener Maler zur Zeit der Bruegel-Dynastie, Wolfratshausen 2005, pp. 32, 143, no. 39.

The following condition report is provided by Sarah Walden who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: This painting is on a thick oak panel in a single piece. The back is inscribed in 1846 with name of the ancestors of the family with which it has remained ever since. The remarkable stability of the painting's background explains the structural preservation of the panel itself, with no sign of movement, cracking or flaking. There has however been some apparently recent wear, mainly across the landscape in the middle distance, thinner streaks across the trees, the hills on the left and the castle on the right. Fortunately the figures themselves seem scarcely to have been touched, with just slight wear in the Madonna's blue robe and a little in Christ's blue drapery. The sky is also partially worn, but whereas the painting appears generally to have been unusually little touched in the past there has evidently been more old intervention in the sky, to judge from several accumulated old retouchings visible under ultra violet light. In contrast the messy surface of the lower part of the painting and recent streaks of wear across the landscape appear almost to have been some obscure accident. The rare underlying condition and intact quality of the figures however remains exceptional, with the fine detail temporarily dimmed by the surface mess and old varnish but otherwise untouched. A very few recent retouchings can be found but in fact scarcely anything appears to have been done since the presumed accidental surface damage. 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."

Formerly attributed to Ambrosius Francken. A photograph of this painting has been kept at the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie in The Hague (as Gillis Mostaert) since 1971, when it was deposited by the Dutch art historian Horst Gerson. 

Another version of the composition by Mostaert, with a grisaille painted frame, is on loan to the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne.¹  Mai gives that picture, which is of a lower colour key and more simplified in the structure of the landscape, a broad dating of circa 1575-89.  The present work is likely to precede it. 

PROVENANCE
George Ernst Harzen (1790-1863) was a Hamburg dealer and antiquarian.  His bequest gave in 1869 the Hamburg Kunsthalle its first building, which today houses the Prints, Drawings and Photography Departments.

1.  Oil on panel, 56.5 by 75 cm. (81 by 99 cm including the painted frame); see Mai under Literature, p. 32, reproduced p. 36, fig. 18.