Netherlandish School. Formerly known as “The Master of the Death of the Virgin,” from the picture at Munich, noticed below.
LONDON, NATIONAL GALLERY
THE HOLY FAMILY The Virgin, half length, in a blue robe and red mantle, stands on the right suckling the Child, who stands on a parapet clasping her breast in both hands. Her right hand is round His shoulder, her left outstretched at His feet over a spray of cherries. On the left, St. Joseph, facing us, wearing a straw hat and spectacles, is reading a book upon a desk; in front a lily. By the Child’s right foot half a lemon and a knife.
George Salting Bequest, 1910.
THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN. (A Triptych.) The Virgin is on a large bed with a canopy, the foot of it towards us, the head against the back wall of a room paved with ornamental tiles, lighted from the left. Her head is propped high on pillows. A priest is holding a tall lighted candle before her face, and blessing. St. Joseph kneels at the foot of the bed on the right, holding up a tall cross which rests on the bed. Two men-servants in the left foreground are carrying a brazier or pail. Two men are standing at a window in the background on the left. On the right, beside St. Joseph, is robed a figure with left hand upraised, his back to us. Beyond him is an open doorway, between which and the bed are three more figures.
On the left wing are kneeling two men in armour, bareheaded, towards a desk on the right foreground covered with a cloth, and beyond them stand St. George (on the left) holding a tall standard in his right hand with a pennant floating overhead, while his right touches the man’s shoulder; and St. Nicasius with his mitre in his left hand outstretched, and his left on the other man’s shoulder. A hilly landscape background with a river.
On the right wing, similarly grouped, with a softer landscape background, are two women, and behind them St. Christina with a millwheel and St. Gudula with a lantern.
Commissioned in 1515 by Nicaise Hacquenay of Cologne, agent of the Emperor Maximilian.
THE HOLY FAMILY With a round top. In the centre St. Anne is seated on a throne with porphyry columns with the Child on her left knee, who turns to the Virgin, who kneels on the right. St. Joseph kneels on the left. On either side of the throne a landscape background.
Formerly attributed to Jan de Calcar.