Weyden, Rogier van der Rogier van der Weyden,... Lot 6

Weyden, Rogier van der Rogier van der Weyden, follower of 1399/1400 Tournai - 1464 Brussels The Virgin and Child Oil on oak panel. 48 x 37 cm. Provenance With Jacques Leegenhoek, Paris, 1984. Literature Corinna Peuckert, in: Ekkehard Mai (ed.): Das Kabinett des Sammlers, Cologne 1993, pp. 45-7, no. 18, reproduced. Rogier van der Weyden's œuvre reveals the master as the most inventive early Netherlandish painter in the 15th century, creating works of art which served as for decades onwards by his workshop and followers. Among his creations the Virgo lactans or Nursing Madonna turns out to have been one of the most popular themes used for private devotion, sometimes associated with a donor portrait in the format of a diptych. The present panel is a fine example of a pictorial type highly appreciated on the art market in Bruges and Brussels. The various surviving versions of this beloved image single out from each other by their style, setting, ornaments and technique. According to the price paid by the patron the figures were either set in a prestigious surrounding, before a landscape or just simply in front of a monochrome background. In Bruges such examples can be found among others by the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula where the Virgin appears crowned in heaven before a gold ground (Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum; Worcester, Art Museum) in the circle of Gerard David (Madrid, Museo Lázaro Galdiano, inv. no. 3049) by Adriaen Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson, or even on a manuscript painting from the Ghent-Bruges school (Sale Romantic Agony, Brussels, 14 June 2008, lot 951). At the end of the 15th and early 16th centuries in Brussels - home town of Van der Weyden - painters were all working under his strong stylistic influence. Among them were