Lot 2006 Nα

The central panel of this Bruges triptych depicts the Virgin Mary dressed in a blue robe and red cloak, enthroned on a grass covered stone in front of a hilly landscape stretching out into the distance. She offers Her bare right breast to the infant Jesus who is sitting cross-legged on Her lap. The Child, lying on a white cloth, places His left hand on His mother's chest while His right hand grasps the prayer beads hanging around His neck. Two angels hover with a crown above the Virgin's head, which is covered with a transparent white veil, and God the Father appears in the clouds opening in the firmament.
The central depiction is flanked on the left side wing by a figure of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia, who is shown with a crown in her hand and a beggar at her feet, while on the right wing a donor dressed in an elegant black cloak is depicted kneeling with clasped hands in front of a prie-dieu with a rosary on it. When closed, the outer faces of the side wings show an annunciation, partially executed in grisaille, in which the angel Gabriel (left) and Mary (right) are painted to resemble stone sculptures in a marbled wall niche.
The triptych is a work previously unknown to researchers, painted by the Master of the Holy Blood, who was active in Bruges in the first decades after 1500. This painter, who has not been identified, derived his notname from a Lamentation triptych in the possession of the Brotherhood of the Holy Blood in Bruges. Already in the middle ages, the members of this influential group were charged with watching over the miraculous relic of the Holy Blood, which is venerated still today in a chapel beside the Bruges town hall. The anonymus painter's oeuvre, compiled by Georges Hulin de Loo and Max J. Friedländer on the basis of stylistic parallels, comprises around thirty works. In contrast to most of his contemporaries in Bruges, his paintings clearly display the influence of the Antwerp school, and he appears to have drawn especially on the works of Quentin Massys and the Master of Frankfurt. There is therefore much to suggest that the artist was trained in Antwerp and - as was demonstrably the case with Gerard David and Jan Provoost - maintained active contact from Bruges with what was then the most important trading metropolis in the Burgundian Netherlands.
In addition to the Bruges Lamentation triptych, the master's principal works include a triptych of the Glorification of the Madonna, which is still preserved in the local St. James's Church (presumably commissioned by the Bruges Franciscans), a triptych of the “Virgo inter Virgines” originally commissioned by Jan van Cattenbrouck and his wife Jossine Lamsins (Groeningemuseum, Bruges), a “Holy Kinship” with a portrait of the later Emperor Maximilian (Städelmuseum, Frankfurt), a triptych with the “Adoration of the Magi” (Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan), an “Ecce-Homo Triptych” (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid) and the depiction of Saint Luke painting the Madonna, (Harvard University Art Museum, Cambridge Mass.). In addition to these core works, there are also several devotional paintings in which the painter was influenced by the works of his predecessors and contemporaries in Bruges - Hans Memling, Gerard David, Jan Provoost, Ambrosius Benson and Adriaen Isenbrant. The Master of the Holy Blood was inspired by Joos van Cleve in his depiction of the suicide of Lucretia, which has come down to us in several versions (including in Vienna, Prague and Budapest). The work clearly illustrates the humanistic interest in classical themes and can be considered a milestone in development of Dutch nude painting.
This previously undiscovered triptych also illustrates the Bruges painter's interest in classical and neo-classical motifs. The grass on which Mary sits with the Child and which traditionally symbolises Her humility and modesty does not grow on top of a brick bench, as is the case in older Flemish depictions of such Madonnas, but over a stone sarcophagus with frieze-like relief depictions of nude putti.
The Master of the Holy Blood based the central representation of the Mother/Child group, on an image of the Rest on the Flight into Egypt devised by Gerard David (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). The composition enjoyed great popularity among its contemporaries and was also taken up by the workshops of Adriaen Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson, among others. For the depiction of the infant Jesus, the master also drew inspiration from devotional images by the Antwerp painter Joos van Cleve.
The landscape backdrop, which extends across the entire triptych, draws on typical motifs of the Bruges School, for example the gatehouse on the left, which already appears in the paintings of Hans Memling. The mountains that rise up behind the treetops in the background, on the other hand, are reminiscent of similar rock formations in the oeuvre of Adriaen Isenbrant (Van der Velde diptych in the Fine Arts Museum of Belgium in Brussels; Mary Magdalene in the National Gallery London).
There are no direct models recognizable for the figure of Saint Elisabeth of Thuringia on the left wing, but the saint was already common in Bruges in paintings by Jan van Eyck (The Frick Collection, New York) and Petrus Christus (Groeningemuseum, Bruges) and later Jan Provoost (Palazzo Bianco, Genova). The donor portrait on the right wing is reminiscent of portraits by Ambrosius Benson, who often worked on behalf of the Spanish merchants based in Bruges. But the impression is deceptive, because although the donor depicted could possibly be a Spaniard, the hands folded in prayer with their long fingers reveal the peculiar style of the Master of the Holy Blood.
His typical manner is particularly evident in the central panel. The triptych shares the detailed depiction of the Virgin Mary with Her slightly elongated fingers, the transparent veil and especially the characteristic physiognomy with other key works by the Master of the Holy Blood and leave no doubt as to its authorship. In terms of style and brushwork, the depiction is particularly close to the large triptych with the Glorification of the Virgin, which was originally commissioned by the monks from the two Franciscan convents in Bruges on the occasion of the unification of their two congregations in 1517 and is now housed in St Jacob's Church. There, the design of the rocky mountains in the background of the depiction of John on Patmos on the right wing is particularly reminiscent of the landscape in the central panel with Mary in this small triptych.
The grisaille Annunciation on the outer panels of the triptych, visible when it is closed, is similar to the Annunciation on the triptych of the Virgo inter Virgines in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges, which is also painted in grisaille technique and whose wings are slightly wider. While the figure of the archangel on the Bruges triptych was designed to be more expansive, Gabriel appears more compact on the Virgin Mary triptych. The two figures of the Virgin Mary, on the other hand, correspond exactly – even down to the folds of the drapery – and were probably transferred to panel from a detailed drawing by the master.

We would like to thank Dr Till-Holger Borchert for the identification of this work and for providing this catalogue text.