Lot 1009 Rα

The master owes its provisional name to The Story of the Prodigal Son, his most important painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. 773). The present Virgin and Child with saint John the Baptist is a new evidence of a highly praised composition in Antwerp in the mid sixteenth century by the master. The picture appears to be close - even if not exactly the same - to the one in the Museo Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid (inv. 3020, panel 86 x 69 cm). In both the figures are seated against a large drapery falling in heavy folds suggesting that they are placed under a canopy. Similarly the Virgin is looking to the viewer while John the Baptist is presented in an elegant full profile. But unlike the spanish panel where the Infant Christ's gaze is clearly turned to the left indicating the former presence of a donor on the lost wing, here he looks directly at the Baptist showing that this composition was designed to be offered independently for sale on the art market.
The mannerist influence is noticeable in the sharp violet color of saint John's tunic and the Flemish renaissance is obviously discernable in the plastic and shaped bodies who recall the figure types of Pieter Coeck van Aelst. The still life on the table in the foreground of the lower right corner commemorates the idiom of Joos van Cleve, another famous Antwerp painter active in the first half of the 16th century.