Gutachten:
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Provenienz:
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Ausstellungen:
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Ausstellung:
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Provenance:
Private collection, Switzerland.

This atmospheric composition with Mary and the Christ Child, St John the Baptist and angels can be identified as a very high-quality work from the workshop of Cornelis van Cleve. The individual motifs such as the Virgin, the child Jesus and the draped curtain are particularly expressive and indicative of an artistic proximity to the master. The composition takes up an idea by Andrea del Sarto (1486–1531) which was very popular in the 16th century, and which inspired numerous contemporary copies (John Shearman: Andrea del Sarto, Oxford 1965, no. 32, pp. 217–219).

Cornelis van Cleve treated this subject several times, for example in a version in the Chrysler Museum of Art (inv. no. 2014.3.4), in which the composition is complemented by a rounded staircase in the foreground, which is also employed in the painting offered here.

Cornelis van Cleve's oeuvre has not been fully explored to date due to the lack of documented works. Stylistically influenced by his father, Joos van Cleve (1485–1540), with whom Cornelis was apprenticed, a number of high-quality works can be attributed to Cornelis' hand, to which the present work may be associated.

Our thanks to John Hand for his expert assistance in cataloguing this work on the basis of a photograph.