Lot 5 Dα

The small-format charming painting, made for private devotion, shows the half-length figures of the Madonna and the Christ Child as well as the matronly clad St. Anna, who also gestures towards the future redeemer with her right hand whilst holding a book in her left. The dove of the Holy Ghost soars above. Positioned behind a table which pushes into the pictorial space, the group is surrounded by a domestic interior with an open window to one side with Mary framed by a brocade curtain.
When first published in 1993 (Müller 1993, op. cit.), the painting was attributed to the so-called Master of 1518, identified by Georges Marlier (Marlier 1966, op. cit.) as Jan van Dornicke, active in Antwerp in the first quarter of the 16th century. Most recently, the Master of the Lille Adoration has been suggested as the author of our painting, who, like Jan van Dornicke, belonged to the Antwerp mannerists and was active in the city around 1510-1530. He was named after a painting from 1512 depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds in Lille (Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, inv. no. P 739), which, like the other circa twenty works attributed to him, is obviously directly influenced by the Antwerp master Dirk Jakobsz Vellert.
We would like to thank Peter van den Brink, Aachen, for his advice and support with the cataloguing of this painting.