Old Masters Day Sale
Old Masters Day Sale
Property from a Distinguished Spanish Private Collection
Workshop of Joos van Cleve
The Virgin and Child: 'The Madonna of the Cherries'
Lot Closed
July 8, 01:17 PM GMT
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
Property from a Distinguished Spanish Private Collection
Workshop of Joos van Cleve
Cleve (?) Date Unknown - 1540/1 Antwerp
The Virgin and Child: 'The Madonna of the Cherries'
oil on oak panel
unframed: 47.7 x 39.9 cm.; 18¾ x 15¾ in.
framed: 60 x 51 cm.; 23⅝ x 20⅛ in.
Sir Stuart M. Samuel;
Anonymous sale, London, Christie's, 25 March 1927, lot 86 (as Joos van Cleve), for 310 Guineas to Smith;
With Wildenstein, Paris;
From whom acquired by William Goldman, by 1929;
Edwin D. Levinson, New York (1876-1954);
By descent to Evelyn Levinson Stein;
By whom sold, New York, Christie's, 15 October 1992, lot 42 (as Workshop of Joos van Cleve);
Acquired by the father of the present owners.
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, vol. IX, Leiden 1972, p. 63, cat. no. 63k, reproduced pl. 79 (as a copy).
Originally designed by Leonardo da Vinci in the first decade of the 16th century and adapted by one of his best students, Giampietrino, 'The Madonna of the Cherries' was popularised and proliferated north of the Alps by Joos van Cleve and his workshop in Antwerp in circa 1525-30.
Of the numerous depictions of the Madonna of the Cherries from the 16th century, ten are known to be by Joos van Cleve and his studio.1 Although Friedländer, Ludwig von Baldass and John Oliver Hand did not consider any of these extant versions to be completely by the master’s hand, Peter van den Brink and Micha Leeflang identify the paintings in Aachen (Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum)2 and in the Hester Diamond Collection, New York,3 as autograph.4 The present composition differs from these in that the Christ Child is reaching for the transparent veil with his right hand (instead of holding cherries in both hands) and in some details of the landscape and architecture.
We are grateful to Dr Micha Leeflang for endorsing the present panel as a high-quality product of Joos van Cleve's workshop. The infrared photography shows evidence of a tracing cartoon, which is common for this composition.
1 J.O. Hand, Joos van Cleve, The Complete Paintings, New Haven, 2004, pp. 185-87, cat. nos 112-112.9.
2 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/41675
3 https://rkd.nl/explore/images/65222
4 P. van den Brink (ed.), Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens, exh. cat., Aachen 2011, p. 176, cat. nos 34-35, reproduced figs 90-91; M. Leeflang, Joos van Cleve: A Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Artist and his Workshop, Turnhout 2015, pp. 75-79.