Early Netherlandish School, 16th Century

The Holy Family,
oil on panel, 51.3 x 36.8 cm, framed

This fine example of early Netherlandish painting was almost certainly produced for private devotion. It represents an introspective image of the Virgin Mary nursing the sleeping Infant Christ, whilst Saint Joseph is looking directly at the viewer.

The present panel was executed in Antwerp, a major financial and artistic centre of the Northern Renaissance. Though the early Netherlandish masters were highly innovative, they also liked to reinterpret, reinvent and vary certain compositional schemes that had proven commercially successful. The present Holy Family appears to be a free and ingenious variation of a painting by Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse (1478–1532) in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. The as yet unidentified master, who clearly was able to produce works of high quality, appears to have been active in Mabuse’s immediate circle, possibly a pupil trained in the former’s studio, or an independent artist in Antwerp drawing inspiration from Mabuse’s work. He did incorporate other inspirations as well, as was the usual custom for the demanding market in sixteenth-century Flanders. The face of Saint Joseph appears to be inspired by works of Joos van Cleve, an artist who, along with Jan Gossaert, was considered the foremost painter of his day in Antwerp. He had a distinct and highly successful style, combining technical accomplishment in oil, inherited from the early Netherlandish tradition, with a rich palette indebted to Northern Italian, especially Venetian, models.

It is interesting to note that in preparing the present painting, the artist executed a highly detailed underdrawing (visible to the naked eye) which he apparently discarded, or at least varied in parts, when he executed the painting in oil. These spontaneously conceived alterations point to an accomplished artist rather than to a workshop assistant.