The Artist: For a Biography of the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend, see the Catalogue Entry for Saint Paul with a Donor; Christ Appearing to His Mother (32.100.63ab).

The Painting: This exceptionally well-preserved painting, complete with its original frame, represents a particularly beloved theme of early Netherlandish painting. The motif of the Virgin breast-feeding the Christ Child derives from Byzantine icons, known as the Galaktotrophousa (or in Latin, the Virgo lactans).[1] Medieval devotional literature embraced the theme and developed its meaning by connecting it with the Incarnation, as did Saint John Chrysostom, or with Christ’s Passion, as explained by Saint Clement of Alexandria.[2] Later on, female mystics, among them Mechteld of Magdeburg and Hildegard of Bingen, as well as the Dominicans and Cistercians, focused on the miracle of lactation, leading to the great popularity of the cult of the Virgin’s milk throughout late medieval Europe.[3] As the Virgin’s milk was associated with healing and with her powers of intercession for humankind, relics associated with this cult attracted pilgrims from far and wide to churches in major cities. Sint-Donaaskerk (Saint Donatian’s church) in Bruges, for example, was famous for its relics of the Virgin’s hair and her milk, thus motivating a demand for multiple images of the nursing Virgin, which could be fashioned to suit the patron and his or her circumstances of location and devotional practice (see below).[4]

The specific motif of the Virgin and Child in The Met’s painting is adapted from Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; see fig. 1 above), dating around 1435–40. Exact copies of the entire painting, from about 1484 into the sixteenth century, are in museums in Munich (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek), Saint Petersburg (Hermitage), Bruges (Groeningemuseum), and elsewhere. As in the case of The Met’s painting, an even larger number of panels excerpted the motif of the Virgin and Child to focus specifically on the Virgo lactans theme (De Vos 1971). The half-length version of Rogier’s Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin shows slight alterations in the positions of the head and left leg of the Christ Child, the headdress, hairline, and position of the Virgin’s fingers, the cloth above her exposed breast, and the cloth under the Christ Child (Stroo and Syfer-d’Olne 1996, p. 169). This variant model may have been created by Rogier himself or by a close follower.

The half-length paintings could be tailor-made for each client with the addition of identifying family coats of arms, donor portraits in pendant panels, and varied settings including background landscape scenes. For example, in the Diptych of the Virgin and Child with Joos van der Burch and Saint Simon of Jerusalem (ca. 1480 and ca. 1493; Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, figs. 2a, 2b) the patron is identified by his coat of arms in the windows at the back of the room and by his device that swirls on a banderole above his hands (Van der Burch was councilor to Maximilian I and Philip the Handsome, and receiver of Veurne-Ambacht, the shire of Furnes).[5] These distinguishing features and the coordination of the setting in the two panels indicate that the Virgin and Child have miraculously appeared in the donor’s residence. Another version shows in a background stained-glass window the coat of arms and the device of Martin Reynhout and his first wife, Barbe van Rockaringen (before 1494; Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, fig. 3; Stroo and Sufer-d’Olne 1996, no. 11, pp. 164–73). The Met painting is distinguished from these examples by its setting of a trompe-l’oeil golden niche for the Virgin and Child. Instead of any reference to donor figures or their contemporary world, this painting harks back to the eternal status of Byzantine icons. Installed in a chapel illuminated only by candlelight, the shimmering golden background would have enhanced the aura of the Virgin and Child as if they had suddenly materialized in the viewer’s environment. Such an image may have been intended to inspire devotion to a relic of the Virgin’s milk, perhaps the one in the Church of Saint Donatian in Bruges, the city where this painting was likely produced (see below). The x-radiograph of the painting shows original hinge holes that have been filled on the upper and lower edges of the left and right sides of the frame (see Technical Notes). This indicates that The Met’s painting originally had wings, decorated perhaps with prayers, images of angels, or donor figures or their coats of arms.

The Attribution and Date: As mentioned above, at least two other panels show the motif of the Virgin and Child that is adopted by The Met’s painting. These are in the collections of the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, and the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts (figs. 2a, 2b, 3), each attributed to a Follower of Rogier van der Weyden.[6] These paintings are nearly identical in size, and the motif of the Virgin and Child is equivalent. A tracing made of the motif of the Virgin and Child in The Met’s painting was placed over the same motif in the Brussels and the Cambridge examples. In each case, the contours of the figures are closely aligned, indicating that they may have derived from the same workshop pattern.[7] All three show a minimal underdrawing confined to the contours of the forms (for The Met’s painting, see the Technical Notes; fig. 4).[8] The Brussels and Cambridge paintings are similar to each other in their painting technique. Friedländer (1928) noted that The Met’s painting follows Rogier so closely that the artist’s personal style can hardly be recognized. Although The Met’s example clearly attempts to approximate the style of the Rogerian model, it appears different in technique, particularly in the modeling of the “smooth, almost marble-like flesh” (see Technical Notes).

In addition, The Met’s painting shows stylistic traits of the group of Virgin and Child paintings that were attributed by Friedländer to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend: the wide part in the Virgin’s hair, the widow’s-peak hairline, the narrow crescent-shaped ears, and the schematic waves of hair on each side of the face (Friedländer 1928, VI, pp. 61-62; 1971, VIa, p. 39). Moreover, the head of the Christ Child is far less Rogerian and more like examples in the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend group. Virgin and Child paintings in the Fogg Art Museum (Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge), Worcester Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum, and Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection (Madrid) provide close parallels (figs. 5–8). The Los Angeles County Museum example (fig. 7) also shows a curved-back golden throne with the same black parallel and cross-hatched modeling of the golden trompe-l’oeil throne arcade as that found in the niche behind The Met’s Virgin and Child. A further connection of The Met painting with several in the Saint Ursula Master group is evident in the x-radiographs showing the build-up of lead white used to model the features of the face of the Virgin. The Met painting reveals the concentration of lead white highlights specifically placed at the peak of the forehead, a broad stroke just above the proper right eye, diagonal strokes beneath the eyes, and a spot at the tip of the nose (fig. 9). In general, this is similar to the treatment found in the Virgin heads of the paintings in the Fogg Art Museum, Los Angeles Art Museum, and elsewhere (figs. 10, 11).[9] However, the handling in paint is different in all three, and a closer technical examination of the Virgin and Child paintings in the group attributed to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend is necessary to determine whether these works share more in common than their stylistic traits.

As noted above, the Cambridge and Brussels Virgin and Child paintings after Rogier van der Weyden (figs. 2a, 2b, 3) indicate Bruges patrons, identified by their coats of arms, and can be dated about 1480, about 1493, and before 1494, respectively. The Master of the Saint Ursula Legend Virgin and Child paintings discussed here are linked with perhaps one or more Bruges workshops active from about 1470–90. Finally, a full-page image of the Rogerian Virgin and Child across from Joanna of Castile at Prayer is featured in the Hours of Joanna of Castile (fol. 287v-288, British Library, London, MS. 18852), attributed to the Master of the David Scenes in the Grimany Breviary, also produced in Bruges or Ghent between 1496 and 1506.[10] It is most plausible that The Met’s painting was produced in Bruges and dates about 1480–90.[11]

Maryan W. Ainsworth 2022

[1] For a discussion of the iconography of the Virgo lactans type, see Stroo and Syfer-d’Olne 1996, pp. 81–82. See also Ainsworth 2004, pp. 554–55, 569–73, nos. 340–41.
[2] D. Apostolos-Cappadona, “Picturing Devotion: Rogier’s Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin” in Carol Purtle, ed., The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Rogier van de Weyden, Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin, Selected Essays in Context, Turnhout, 1997, pp. 5–14.
[3] P. V. Bétérous, “À propos d’une des legends mariales les plus répandues: Le ‘lait de la Vierge’,” Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé 4, 1975, pp. 401–11. See C. Walker Bynam, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Berkeley, 1987, pp. 261–76; M. Warner, Alone of all her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary, New York, 1983, pp. 192–205; and Apostolos-Cappadona 1997, pp. 5–14.
[4] A. Sanderus, Flandria illustrate: Sive descriptio comitatus istius, 2 vols., Cologne, 1641–44, vol. 2, pp. 78ff, listed these relics among those at Saint Donatian. See also J. Toussaert, Le sentiment religieux en flandre à la fin du Moyen Âge, Paris, 1963, p. 292.
[5] John Oliver Hand, Catherine A. Metzger, Ron Spronk, eds., Prayers and Portraits, Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, and Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp, New Haven, 2006, pp. 264–65, no. 40.
[6] Three other closely associated panels possibly made from the same cartoon are in Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Kassel; Museo Nacional de Escultura, Valladolid; J. G. Nyssen-Wiegand Collection, Barcelona. See Stroo and Syfer-d’Olne 1996, pp. 168–69.
[7] The comparison of the tracing of The Met's painting over the Brussels painting was made by Pascale Sufer-d’Olne (correspondence of November 17, 1997, in the European Paintings Curatorial files and Paintings Conservation files). The comparison of the tracing of the New York painting over the x-radiograph of the Cambridge example (as the painting was not easily accessible in a glass vitrine) was made by Ron Spronk (correspondence of November 7, 1997, in the European Paintings Curatorial files and Paintings Conservation files).
[8] Dijkstra (1990, p. 125) noted that the Brussels and Cambridge paintings were made with the aid of the same cartoon, and a transfer process from the cartoon to the grounded panel. However, Hand, Metzger, and Spronk 2006, p. 302) describe the Cambridge example as having a fluid and confident underdrawing, with no hatching, but they do not mention the use of a cartoon.
[9] See also the Saint Ursula Master Virgin and Child in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels in Sufer-d’Olne et al. 2006, p. 327, fig. 235.
[11] SMK, p. 411–12.
[12] Peter Klein’s dendrochronology analysis indicated an earliest possible creation date of 1451, with a more plausible date of 1457 onwards (see Technical Notes).

Support: The support was constructed from a single plank of oak, with the grain oriented vertically. The wood originated in the Baltic/Polish region. Dendrochronological analysis indicated an earliest possible creation date of 1451, with a more plausible date of 1457 onwards.[1] At some point before entering The Met’s collection, the panel was planed down to 5/16 inch and cradled.

The painting retains its original, engaged frame. The frame was once attached to panels on either side by hinges: there were two on each vertical member, located near the bottom and just before the beginning of the arch. x-radiography allows study of the nails used to attach the hinges; these are generally long, thin, and non-tapering, and exhibit a good deal of corrosion, suggesting age (see fig. 9 above). It is not possible to state definitively that the hinges were original, but the nails are certainly quite old.

Preparation: The panel was prepared with a white ground. Broad, dimly radio-opaque brushstrokes are evident in the x-radiograph, suggesting the presence of a lead white-containing priming layer.

Examination with infrared reflectography revealed the presence of only a few underdrawn lines, which appear faint in the reflectogram (fig. 4).[2] All of the important features appear to have been underdrawn, but the underdrawing is often difficult to distinguish from the directly overlying painted contours. Underdrawn lines can be most easily observed at the Virgin’s proper left cheek, the inner corner of her eyes and at the Child’s mouth and nostrils. The lines are too faint in the reflectogram to characterize the underdrawing material.

Paint Layers: The artist conferred a cool luminosity on the Virgin and Child that contrasts with the dazzling, gilded background. He created the very smooth, almost marble-like flesh by softly blending his paint. He mixed blue paint into the shadows with only a small amount of pink, yielding generally cool fleshtones that are only marginally enlivened by use of a warm brown paint at the contours. Nearly pure white paint at the highlights was smoothly blended into the mid-tones. The artist also painted cool, white reflections along the lower left edge of the figures’ limbs and the Virgin’s chin, as if their fleshtones reflected a light source shining from below. This may have been a strategy to accentuate their sculptural quality and perhaps also a response to the lighting in their intended setting, that is, lit from below by candles. The artist’s use of a luminous reflection at the lower edge of the fleshtones could be a distinguishing technical feature.

Close viewing reveals the artist’s sensitivity to small details, such as the stream of milk from the Virgin’s breast or the way that the seam of the Virgin’s brocaded sleeve strains slightly against the buttons and catches the light. The ringlets of hair of both figures were picked out with very delicate strokes of nearly white paint, causing the distinct strokes to stand out, even in front of the resplendent gold background.

Gilding: The gold background was created through strategic craftsmanship. The background was first decorated with water gilding over a warm ochre-colored bole. In a dazzling juxtaposition of two- and three-dimensional art, the molding of the carved frame was continued onto the gold background of the panel, using black paint. The shading was created using neat diagonal cross-hatches in a manner reminiscent of woodcut prints. This strategy of black hatching on a gold ground is comparable to that seen in The Seven Sacraments by Rogier van der Weyden (Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp) and also the Virgin and Child by the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula (Los Angeles County Museum of Art; see Catalogue Entry).[3] Finally, the rays emanating from the two figures were added as a last step, through mordant gilding. The gilding on the rays is nearly entirely abraded now, so the warm ochre of the mordant is evident and the original effect diminished. Otherwise, the painting is in very good condition.

Sophie Scully 2022

[1] Wood identification and dendrochronological analysis completed by Dr. Peter Klein, Universität Hamburg, report dated May 5, 2015. The report can be found in the files of the Department of Paintings Conservation. “The youngest heartwood ring was formed out in the year 1440. Regarding the sapwood statistic of Eastern Europe an earliest felling date can be derived for the year 1449, more plausible is a felling date between 1453..1455….1459 +x. With a minimum of 2 years for seasoning an earliest creation of the painting is possible from 1451 upwards. Under the assumption of a median of 15 sapwood rings and 2 years for seasoning, as probably usual in the 14th/15th century, a creation is plausible from 1457 upwards.”
[2] Infrared reflectography was acquired with an OSIRIS InGaAs near-infrared camera fitted with a 6-element, 150 mm focal length f/5.6–f/45 lens; 900-1700 nm spectral response. Acquired November 2019 by Evan Read.
[3] Marie Postec, “Technical Reconstructions Based on ‘The Seven Sacraments’ by Rogier van der Weyden: an Experimental Approach,” in ed. Lorne Campbell et al., Rogier van der Weyden in Context, Papers Presented at the Seventeenth Symposium for the Study of Underdrawing and Technology in Painting held in Leuven, 22–24 October 2009, Leuven 2012, pp. 155–56. Rogier most likely made the trompe-l’oeil effect with a fine brush, using lampblack in animal glue, but did not add further gilding with a mordant as in The Met’s painting.

[Horace Buttery, London, in 1898]; Stanley Mortimer II, New York (until 1909); [Kleinberger, New York, 1909]; J. Pierpont Morgan, New York (1909–d. 1913; his estate, New York, 1913–17)

Bruges. Groeninge Museum. "Primitifs flamands anonymes," June 14–September 21, 1969, no. 10.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 22, 1998–February 21, 1999, no. 49.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557)," March 23–July 4, 2004, no. 341.

B[ryson]. B[urroughs]. "Recent Loans." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 4 (September 1909), p. 154.

W. R. V[alentiner]. "Two Paintings Acquired for the Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts." Art in America 2 (1914), p. 164, attributes it to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend.

Max J. Friedländer. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 2, Rogier van der Weyden und der Meister von Flémalle. Berlin, 1924, p. 129, no. 107g, calls it one of many similar compositions with the Virgin nursing the Child, one hand at her breast, that are derived from Rogier's composition of Saint Luke Painting the Virgin [original in Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]; ascribes it to a competent follower of Rogier, thoroughly in his style .

Max J. Friedländer. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 6, Memling und Gerard David. Berlin, 1928, pp. 62, 137, no. 120, mentions this picture among works in which the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend follows Rogier so closely that his personal style can hardly be recognized.

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings. New York, 1947, pp. 75–76, ill.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 65.

Pierre Bautier. "Le maître brugeois de la légende de sainte Ursule." Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts Bulletin 5 (March 1956), p. 5, fig. 2.

Erik Larsen. Les primitifs flamands au Musée Metropolitain de New York. Utrecht, 1960, p. 121, rejects the attribution to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend, calling the panel an anonymous work of the end of the fifteenth century.

Colin Tobias Eisler. "New England Museums." New England Museums [Les primitifs flamands, I: Corpus de la peinture des anciens pays-bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, vol. 4]. Brussels, 1961, p. 106, publishes a letter from W. R. Valentiner mentioning this work.

Georges Marlier. "Le Maître de la Légende de sainte Ursule." Jaarboek / Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten (1964), pp. 17, 37, notes that the attribution to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend has been contested and merits further discussion.

Max J. Friedländer et al. Early Netherlandish Painting. Vol. 2, Rogier van der Weyden and the Master of Flémalle. New York, 1967, pp. 83, 101 n. 99, no. 107g.

Giovanni Carandente. Collections d'Italie, I: Sicile [Les primitifs flamands, II: Répertoire des peintures flamandes du quinzième siècle, vol. 3]. Vol. 3, Brussels, 1968, p. 20.

D. Farmer. Primitifs flamands anonymes. Exh. cat., Groeninge Museum. Bruges, 1969, pp. 45, 203, ill.

Nicole Reynaud and Jacques Foucart. "Expositions: Primitifs flamands anonymes, 1969." Revue de l'art no. 8 (1970), p. 68, reject the attribution of this picture to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend, noting its soft and uniform sweetness, as well as the linear drawing that derives directly from a Rogerian prototype, without the reinterpretation so characteristic of the Master.

Dirk De Vos. "De Madonna-en-Kindtypologie bij Rogier van der Weyden en enkele minder gekende Flemalleske Voorlopers." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 30 (1971), p. 127, fig. 60 , lists this panel with twenty-three other works derived from Rogier's composition of the Madonna and Child with Saint Luke; places ours with the sub-group associated with the Master of the Ursula Legend.

Molly Faries, Barbara Heller, and Daniel Levine. "The Recently Discovered Underdrawings of the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend's 'Triptych of the Nativity'." Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 62, no. 4 (1987), p. 19 n. 21.

Daniel Michael Levine. "The Bruges Master of the St. Ursula Legend Re-considered." PhD diss., Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1989, pp. 76–77, 87 n. 35, pp. 97–98, 115, nn. 27–28, pp. 143, 261–62, cat. no. N4, lists it with works no longer attributed to the Ursula Master and notes that "it shares in its contours the outlines of at least two other paintings in Brussels [Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique] and Cambridge, Mass. [Fogg Art Museum]," which are virtually identical in size; finds the hair-line similar to that which Friedländer associates with the Master, but the mouth not large enough, and the eyes almost "closed and invisible" in comparison with "the large, dark eyes so common to works ascribed to him".

Jeltje Dijkstra. "Origineel en Kopie: Een Onderzoek naar de Navolging van de Meester van Flémalle en Rogier van der Weyden." PhD diss., Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1990, pp. 129, 244 n. 401, p. 250 n. 457, calls it the left wing of an altarpiece ascribed to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend, noting that the Virgin's head is treated in a similar manner in the Cambridge and Brussels versions; tentatively ascribes the latter to the same hand .

Chiyo Ishikawa. "Rogier van der Weyden's Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin Reexamined." Journal of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 2 (1990), pp. 59 n. 26, p. 64, notes that according to Maryan Ainsworth, no underdrawing was visible when this work was studied with infrared reflectography, possibly due to the thickness of the paint.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 255, ill.

Cyriel Stroo and Pascale Syfer-d'Olne. The Flemish Primitives: Catalogue of Early Netherlandish Painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. Ed. Elizabeth Moodey and Stanton Thomas. Vol. 1, The Master of Flémalle and Rogier van der Weyden Groups. Brussels, 1996, pp. 171, 173 n. 21, ill., calls the attribution of our picture uncertain, noting, however, that the Christ Child's head and face are stylistically closer to the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend than they are in the Brussels and Cambridge pictures.

Pascal d'Olne. Letter to Lisa Murphy. November 17, 1997, notes that when he superimposed a tracing of our panel on the version in Brussels the correspondence was rather faithful, although he found that the contours diverged in certain areas; considers it possible, nevertheless, that the two pictures derive from the same model.

Della Clason Sperling in From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1998, pp. 85, 224–25, no. 49, ill. (color), observes that it may once have been the central panel of a triptych, as plugged hinge holes are visible on both sides of the frame, which is original; believes that this panel and five other versions of the composition were made from the same pattern, most likely in the same workshop, presumably in Bruges.

Maryan W. Ainsworth in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557). Ed. Helen C. Evans. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2004, pp. 554, 572–73, no. 341, ill. (color) p. 572 and fig. 17.16, notes that while the Virgin and Child here have been extracted from Rogier van der Weyden's composition of Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston], the artist has "shifted the representational emphasis from a contemporary timely narrative to an eternal iconic one in order to produce a 'living icon,' à la façon grèce".

Old Masters: Evening Sale. Christie's, London. December 3, 2019, p. 8, under no. 1.

Master Paintings Evening Sale. Sotheby's, New York. January 29, 2020, p. 21, fig. 2 (color), under no. 4.

Master Paintings & Sculpture Part I. Sotheby's, New York. January 28, 2021, p. 66, under no. 10.