Lot 1209 Dα

This motif of the young Christ and John the Baptist kissing is based on a lost work by Leonardo da Vinci, which was copied numerous times by Joos van Cleve and his circle in Antwerp (cf. M J. Friedländer: Die Altniederländische Malerei, vol. IX, 1931, p. 131 f., no. 37). Friedländer lists seven examples, whereby the backgrounds of most pieces vary. In the more opulent versions, the children are depicted in a Renaissance style loggia or beneath a canopy. Whereas in other examples, such as the present work, the pictorial space remains undefined. Quentin Massys also painted this motif, for example in a work now kept in the collection of the Dukes of Devonshire in Chatsworth.