Virgin and Child with Angels

The Artist: Bernard van Orley was born about 1488 in Brussels into a family of painters, and was likely trained by his father Valentin. Although he apparently never traveled to Italy, Van Orley became one of the earliest and greatest exponents of an Italian-Renaissance-inspired style known as Romanism. His assimilation of this style came by way of Raphael’s large-scale designs (cartoons) for a set of tapestries illustrating the Acts of the Apostles for display in the Sistine Chapel in Rome; the cartoons were sent to be woven in Brussels in 1516. Brussels was world-renowned at the time as the center for tapestry manufacture in Europe but it had been superseded by Antwerp as the pre-eminent center for painting. A savvy entrepreneur, Van Orley thus established himself as a leading painter-designer (peintre-inventeur) in the tapestry business in Brussels as well as a master in the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke by 1517. Early on, he rose to prominence as a painter after executing a series of court portraits, and he came to the attention of Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, who hired him as her official court painter in 1518. At Margaret’s death, he continued working for her successor, Mary of Hungary. Van Orley died in 1541.

Van Orley is known for his fine portraits of members of the royal household and their courtiers and many small and medium-sized paintings of the Virgin and Child. He also produced large altarpieces for a variety of patrons such as the corporation of joiners and coopers (Brussels Joiners’ and Coopers’ Altarpiece [Scenes from the Legends of Saints Thomas and Matthias], ca. 1515–20, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels), and the almoners of Antwerp Cathedral (Last Judgment, ca. 1525, Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp). Perhaps his greatest masterpiece is the Job and Lazarus Polyptych, signed and dated 1521 (Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels), that originally hung in Margaret of Austria’s Mechelen palace. Around 1525, Van Orley appears to have become less directly involved with paintings, relegating this production to workshop assistants, while he devoted himself more and more to tapestry designs for major patrons. His greatest achievements as tapestry designer are the Hunts of Maximilian and the Battle of Pavia series (housed today in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, and Museo di Capodimonte, Naples). Here his successful integration of Netherlandish and Italian style garnered international praise. Van Orley was less innovative as a designer of stained glass, but here he also catered to the court. His best-known and most clearly documented examples are the windows in the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, Brussels, which feature members of the Habsburg royal family at worship.

The Painting: This touching embrace between the Virgin and Child takes place in a majestic setting of verdant garden with elaborate Gothic fountain, near a Renaissance palace. Splendidly attired in a fur-lined blue gown and red, gold-trimmed cloak, Mary sits on a red pillow on the ground—her right foot resting on another red pillow—as the Virgin of Humility. Her flowing hair, beneath a white mantle, signals her virginity. Two angels sing in polyphony from a choir book of mensural notation, while in the heavens above, additional angels echo their voices of praise from a shared banderole.

The particular motif of the Virgin and Child is derived from popular Italo-Byzantine icons (Silver 1998, p. 81).[1] The Cambrai Madonna (Notre Dame de Grâce) (see fig. 1 above), brought from Rome to Cambrai in 1440 by Canon Fursy de Bruille, and believed to have been painted by Saint Luke himself, initiated the wide dissemination of a compositional type known as the Eleousa, or Virgin of Tenderness. The heightened intimacy of the embrace of Mother and Child, poised here for a kiss (as in the Dieric Bouts’s Virgin and Child, 30.95.280), conflates the Glykophilousa, or tenderly kissing one, with the Eleousa type.

This Virgin and Child type became closely associated with the Song of Songs (or Song of Solomon) text in the Old Testament. Rupert of Deutz (1070–1129) was the first to give the Song of Songs a fundamentally Marian interpretation, concerning the love union between God and humankind in the Incarnation of Christ through the Virgin Mary.[2] Thereafter, Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux and a medieval theologian (1090–1153), elucidated the Song of Songs (especially 4:12 and 4:15) in his eighty-six sermons (1135–1153) as an allegory in which the Virgin was identified with the bride and Jesus with the heavenly bridegroom. In modern discussions, Leo Steinberg (1996, p. 110) reiterated the Song of Songs interpretation, calling attention to the Child’s chin-chuck of the Virgin, as here, denoting a long-standing convention of “Mary’s son as the Heavenly Bridegroom who, having chosen her for his mother, was choosing her for his eternal consort in heaven.” Steinberg also emphasized the Child’s pose in which his genitals are revealed, emphasizing the Son of God made man and the miracle of the Incarnation.

In addition to emphasizing the relationship of the Virgin and Christ Child, the surviving medieval texts on the Song of Songs also consider the garden setting. Even before Saint Bernard, theologians had discussed the image of the “inner garden of virtue” planted in the soul by God to lead man to salvation.[3] Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) adapted this to the enclosed garden (hortus conclusus) by which it is equated with the soul of humankind where “the plants of virtue grow and where the soul can ‘taste’ the virtues and can gain a foretaste of the divine bliss of the afterlife.”[4] As certain texts such as This is a new spiritual orchard (Dit is een niewe suverlike geestelike boemgaert) of 1508 make clear, this garden must be planted and cared for.[5] The directive includes digging up the “evil roots” of sins and “roots of the nettles of greed and impurity,” as well as planting first the violet of humility, the flower of virtue. Furthermore, there should also be a fountain in the garden containing water to spray the plants.

The various garden allegories, mostly written about 1450–1550, indicate assorted plants that should appear in this garden of the soul, all of them referring specifically to Jesus or the Virgin Mary. Although no text has surfaced that specifically relates to The Met’s painting, it is clear that the precise placement of certain plants in the painting is intentional. Anchoring the composition at the left is the fountain that is identified in exegetical texts with Christ, the “noble well of the blessed passion of Christ,” with Mary, “the well of charity,” or with the “holy trinity [which] flows in our garden.”[6] Nearby in the garden and identified by the key found in fig. 2 above are: flowering columbine (1, the plant of the Holy Spirit and of constancy), common plantain (2, called the “way bread” of pilgrims seeking the path to salvation), wild strawberry (3, expressing the virtues of righteousness and good works), sweet violet (4, humility), and non-flowering columbine (5, the Holy Spirit and constancy). It is notable that the two plants below at the far right and behind the Virgin, are the plants that carry negative meaning. The 1508 text mentioned above instructs that the soul must dig up the “evil roots” of sin and the “roots of the nettles of greed and impurity” (6, at the lower right) and plant the garden with the violet of humility (4), which is directly below the Virgin. Finally, at the upper right is common wormwood (7), indicating the bitterness of Christ’s sacrifice, which is offset by the peacocks above, who represent everlasting life.

The function of this painting then is to serve as an aid in meditation for the viewer whose soul aspires through the purification of sins and the accumulation of virtues to ascend to union with God, greeted by the angels shown in the heavens above. Contemplation of the various virtues presented in this garden of the soul serves this goal. A further clue to how this painting would have functioned for devotional practice is found in the words embroidered in gold on the border of the Virgin’s red cloak, closest to the viewer’s eye. The partially legible inscription reads: MARIA MATER GRASIA[E] MA[TER] (Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother…). These are the initial words of a hymn recited at vespers and lauds in the Office of the Virgin and the Commendation of the Soul. The full passage, certainly known to the viewer of the painting, would have read, “Mary, Mother of Grace, Mother of Mercy, protect me from the enemy, and at the hour of my death receive me.”

The Attribution and Date: The monogram of Albrecht Dürer (AD) and date of 1505, found at the lower left of The Met’s panel, are later false additions. Any early consideration of an attribution to Dürer was abandoned after Max J. Friedländer (1909) correctly linked the picture with Bernard van Orley’s early works, especially with the Brussels Joiners’ and Coopers’ Altarpiece (Scenes from the Legends of Saints Thomas and Matthias) (ca. 1515–20, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels). Van Orley signed this altarpiece with his monogram, family coat of arms, and full signature, providing an undisputed anchor for attribution of his early works. Equally secure are the wings of the Saint Martin Altarpiece of about 1515, showing Van Orley's coat of arms. Stylistically linked to this and commissioned by the same man, Jacques de Coene, are the wings of the Saint John the Baptist Altarpiece, of which The Met owns The Birth and Naming of Saint John the Baptist (2001.216.3); The Martyrdom of Saint John is in a private collection, a promised gift to The Met. These early works all share certain characteristics with The Met’s Virgin and Child: round, smoothly blended facial types with rather neutral expressions, a preference for primary colors interjected with couleur-changeant effects of shimmering fabrics, and the arrangement of the figures in an exterior setting before or adjacent to architecture that combines Gothic and Renaissance ornamentation. The brush underdrawing found in this work (figs. 4–5), with its summary indication of facial features—rough circles for eyes and simple arcs for noses and mouths—and its extensive parallel hatching for the modeling of draperies and the system of lighting is similar to that found in the Saint John the Baptist Altarpiece (see Technical Notes and compare with 2001.216.3). The slightly more sophisticated handling and execution in paint of figures and heads in The Met’s Virgin and Child in relationship to the Saint John the Baptist Altarpiece, and the less nuanced modeling of structurally flatter heads in the Virgin and Child than is found in the Joiners’ and Coopers’ Altarpiece suggests a date between the two, perhaps about 1518.[7] The Met’s Virgin and Child shows close similarities to the latter in its summary description of the background landscape features—some of them painted directly without the benefit of underdrawing—and an identical manner of painting trees and shrubberies with flat disclike applications of lighter and darker green over a uniform greenish base tone. The somewhat less adept painted description of architectural forms in The Met’s Virgin and Child than is found in the Joiners’ and Coopers’ Altarpiece, even though neither consistently uses a one-point perspective scheme for the buildings, also indicates its earlier date.

While it is not possible to determine the circumstances of the commission of this painting, the lavish attire of the Virgin, the accompanying angels singing from a precious gauffered-edged choir book, and the setting of lush garden, decorative Gothic fountain, and Renaissance palace suggest a courtly milieu. In this regard, it is interesting to note that in 1518, around the time when this painting was produced, Van Orley was appointed court painter to Margaret of Austria, Regent of the Netherlands, who resided in the Palais de Savoie in Mechelen.[8] A painting of this description does not appear in the inventories of Margaret’s collections, but it is certainly the type of presentation that would have pleased both her and the courtiers Van Orley was hoping to attract for commissions. Moreover, its meaning and emphasis on virtuous behavior and on the mystical relationship between the human soul and God were matters that preoccupied Margaret, as is evident from the religious books in her library.[9]

Maryan W. Ainsworth 2018

[1] See Maryan W.Ainsworth, “‘À la façon grèce’: The Encounter of Northern Renaissance Artists with Byzantine Icons,” in Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557), ed. Helen Evans, exh. cat. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New Haven, 2004, pp. 544–93, esp. 582–84, 578–79.
[2] This discussion is indebted to and strongly influenced by the research of Reindert L.Falkenburg presented in The Fruit of Devotion: Mysticism and the Imagery of Love in Flemish Paintings of the Virgin and Child, 1450–1550, trans. Sammy Herman, Amsterdam, 1994, pp. 16–55; see also John Decker, “‘Planting Seeds of Righteousness,’ Taming the Wilderness of the Soul: Geertgen tot Sint Jans’s St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness,” in Image and Imagination of the Religious Self in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, eds. Reindert Falkenburg, Walter S. Melion, and Todd M. Richardson, Turnhout, 2007, pp. 307–27.
[3] Falkenburg 1994, p. 19.
[4] Falkenburg 1994, p. 20.
[5] Falkenburg 1994, p. 27.
[6] Falkenburg 1994, p. 28.
[7] For comparisons of the underdrawing and painting technique details found in the Joiners’ and Coopers’ Altarpiece, see Alexandre Galand, The Flemish Primitives VI: the Bernard van Orley Group, Catalogue of Early Netherlandish Painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, 2013, pp. 146–71, esp. 156–62.
[8] The palace architecture in The Met's painting does not closely resemble the details of Margaret’s Palais de Savoie in Mechelen (1517–26), which was in early stages of construction by Anthonis II and Rombout II Keldermans at the time The Met's painting was produced.
[9] See Dagmar Eichberger, Leben mit Kunst, Wirken durch Kunst, Sammelwesen und Hofkunst unter Margarete von Ősterreich, Regentin der Niederlande, Turnhout, 2002, pp. 229–30; and Dagmar Eichberger, ed., Women of Distinction: Margaret of York / Margaret of Austria, exh. cat. Mechelen, 2005, pp. 210–19, 231–39.

Support: The support was constructed from three planks of wood, with the grain oriented vertically. The planks were originally held in place with dowels, evident in the x-radiograph (see fig. 3 above). Dendrochronological analysis of the original support was not possible.[1] A barbe is present on all edges indicating that the panel was in an engaged frame when prepared and that the original dimensions are preserved. At a later date, the painted composition was extended onto the narrow, originally unpainted margins on all sides. The original panel has been thinned to 3 mm, marouflaged onto a 5 mm oak panel and cradled.

Preparation: The panel was prepared with a white ground. Some broader radio-opaque strokes, faintly apparent in the x-radiograph, suggest the presence of an additional priming layer containing lead white. Examination with infrared reflectography revealed an extensive underdrawing, executed using a liquid medium (figs. 4–5).[2] The artist indicated the most important contours of figures and landscape with bold, freely drawn lines. He shaded his forms with closely-spaced, often curving hatchmarks. This hatching is most noticeable in the drapery—see the Virgin’s robe in particular—but is also present in the faces, for example, the three or four curved strokes above the Virgin’s eyes and beneath the Child’s chin. Some passages of hatching appear fainter in the reflectogram, likely because the artist used a more dilute medium there. The artist also indicated important architectural lines, most evident where they were not followed with paint, as in the steps in the foreground.

Comparison of the infrared reflectogram with the painting reveals many small changes, including slight adjustments to the contour of the Virgin’s face, the facial features of both angels, and the initial inclusion of a round element—possibly a diadem—on one angel’s forehead. The artist modified the background, where he had underdrawn additional branches and a tangle of curving lines in the center of the sky that may have indicated rocky mountains. The reflectogram revealed more elaborate decoration beneath the rim of the fountain.

The underdrawing in the architecture at right is difficult to differentiate from the dark paint that lies over it, but it seems that main lines for a different building were underdrawn and then followed in paint to some degree. These changes are more easily understood when examining the paint layers, as discussed below. There are also some rough, preliminary lines for architecture in a dry medium in the lower portion of the building and to the right of the peacocks. There are several incisions for architectural lines: in the steps in the foreground and a few verticals in buildings at right, also evident in the x-radiograph. Although Van Orley corrected some lines in the stone steps and the fountain base, the perspective lines do not meet at a single vanishing point. Such substantial changes to underdrawn architecture accompanied by many minor adjustments to the figures is consistent with other Van Orley paintings that have been studied thus far.[3]

Paint Layers: The painting was executed in a deft and very fluid manner, with some impasto and wet-in-wet brushstrokes. One delightful detail reveals the artist’s facility and quick handling: the light area in the Child’s iris was created by the removal of paint, maybe with a very small stiff brush or even the butt of the paint brush. Van Orley made abundant use of white highlights in the fleshtones of the Virgin and Child, which draw particular attention to their tender embrace. He then set off the luminous fleshtones with brown contour lines, including darker brown touches where the cheeks of Virgin and Child meet. There is a linear emphasis in the artist’s approach to painting; the movement and expression of the figures is largely dependent on the white highlights, which were applied in bold lines as a final step. In another example, the angels’ fingers were animated by final white strokes of paint, which both clarify form and suggest movement.

The artist made several changes to the background during the course of painting. When laying in the sky, he left large reserves for important background details, as evident in the x-radiograph, which help identify the changes. For example, he left a reserve for the large tree at left, and for a squatter shape to the far left, which he then made into taller trees in the painting. He also left a reserve at right for a lower building with a different façade. There is no reserve for the hilltop town in the distance. The town was painted with a similar light blue as the sky and so this may have been a strategic decision; however, the lack of underdrawing and the presence of a large underdrawn branch across it suggests that the town was not part of the initial conception.

The handling in the main figures and the background is quite similar; there are no clear indications of multiple hands at work. In fact, the many changes in the background suggest that Van Orley was involved in the entire composition and making changes as the composition proceeded, rather than drawing a design and delegating isolated areas to assistants.

The painting is somewhat rubbed in the darker passages, but is in generally good condition. The greens have discolored to brown, particularly where more thinly painted, as is typical of copper-containing greens. The green lining of the angel’s red cloak may have lost a modulating glaze, which would have better integrated the slightly stark yellow highlights.

Sophie Scully 2018


[1] Dr. Peter Klein, Universität Hamburg, examined the panel in 1991 and determined that a dating was not possible due to its marouflaged state; report dated May 13, 1997, in Paintings Conservation department files.
[2] Infrared reflectography completed with an OSIRIS InGaAs near-infrared camera with a 6-element, 150 mm focal length f/5.6–f/45 lens; 900–1700 nm spectral response, captured January 2017 by Evan Read.
[3] See Alexandre Galand, The Flemish Primitives VI: the Bernard van Orley Group, Catalogue of Early Netherlandish Painting in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, 2013, pp. 109, 160.

Inscription: Inscribed: (on Virgin's robe) MARIA MATER GRASIA[E] MA[TER] . . . (Mary, Mother of Grace, mo[ther] . . . ); (lower left) 1505 / AD [monogram]

sale, Nuremberg, 1779, to Sierstorpff; Kaspar Heinrich von Sierstorpff, Driburg Castle, Driburg (1779–d.1842; cat., 1817, no. 4, as by Dürer); Grafen von Sierstorpff, Driburg Castle (1842–87; their sale, Lepke's, Berlin, April 19, 1887, no. 4, as by Gossart, for 4,010 marks to Riedel); private collection (until 1901; sale, Rudolf Bangel, Frankfurt, February 12, 1901, no. 17, as by Dürer); Jakob Emden, Hamburg; Hermann Emden, Hamburg (until 1910; sale, Lepke's, Berlin, May 3, 1910, no. 89); Benjamin Altman, New York (until d. 1913)

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. 89.

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT, BY TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART.

Kaspar Heinrich von Sierstorpff. Für die Kunstfreunde, welche meine kleine Gemälde-Sammlung besuchen wollen. Braunschweig, 1817, pp. 51–61, no. 4, as by Dürer.

G. Parthey. Deutscher Bildersaal. Vol. 1, A–K. Berlin, 1863, p. 362, no. 27, lists this picture among the works of Durer, bearing the artist's monogram and dated 1505; locates it in the von Sierstorpff collection, Driburg.

"Vom Kunstmarkt." Kunstchronik 22 (April 28, 1887), p. 478, list it as a work of Van Orley, "not Mabuse," in the von Sierstorpff sale.

Max J. Friedländer. "Bernaert van Orley: II. Orleys Tätigkeit zwischen 1515 und 1520." Jahrbuch der Königlich Preuszischen Kunstsammlungen 30 (1909), pp. 9–10, ill., dates it about 1514, connecting it with Van Orley's Altarpiece of the Apostles (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna).

[Hippolyte] Fierens-Gevaert. La peinture en Belgique: Les primitifs flamands. Vol. 3, Débuts du XVIe siècle: Fin de l'idéal gothique. Brussels, 1910, p. 230, dates it before 1514, observing in it the influence of Gerard David, Quentin Massys, and Jan Gossart.

Ernst Heidrich. Altniederländische Malerei. Jena, Germany, 1910, p. 50, fig. 135.

Martin Conway. The Van Eycks and Their Followers. London, 1921, p. 421, pl. 22, no. 4, date it at the end of van Orley's period from 1512–15.

François Monod. "La galerie Altman au Metropolitan Museum de New-York (1er article)." Gazette des beaux-arts, 5th ser., 8 (September–October 1923), p. 194.

Friedrich Winkler. Die altniederländische Malerei: Die Malerei in Belgien und Holland von 1400–1600. Berlin, 1924, p. 258.

Willy Burger. Die Malerei in den Niederlanden 1400–1550. Munich, 1925, p. 134, as from the artist's early career.

Franz Dülberg. Niederländische Malerei der Spätgotik und Renaissance. Potsdam, 1929, pp. 155–56, ill., dates it roughly in the second decade of the 16th century.

Max J. Friedländer. Die altniederländische Malerei. Vol. 8, Jan Gossart Bernart van Orley. Berlin, 1930, pp. 88–89, 173, no. 124, pl. 87, dates it about 1513.

H[ans]. V[ollmer]. in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. Ed. Hans Vollmer. Vol. 26, Leipzig, 1932, p. 49.

Hans Tietze. Meisterwerke europäischer Malerei in Amerika. Vienna, 1935, p. 335, pl. 145 [English ed., "Masterpieces of European Painting in America," New York, 1939, p. 319, pl. 145].

Ludwig Baldass. "Die Entwicklung des Bernart van Orley." Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien, n.s., 13 (1944), p. 164.

Harry B. Wehle and Margaretta Salinger. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of Early Flemish, Dutch and German Paintings. New York, 1947, pp. 143–45, ill., catalogue the picture and date it about 1513; note that the fountain is a reference to a metaphor for the Virgin in the Song of Songs, 4:15, where she is [according to contemporary interpretation] called "a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters".

Ernest Lotthé. La pensée chrétienne dans la peinture flamande et hollandaise. Lille, 1947, vol. 1, p. 130, pl. 102a, no. 305; vol. 2, p. 332.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 74.

Erik Larsen. Les primitifs flamands au Musée Metropolitain de New York. Utrecht, 1960, pp. 95, 131, pl. 35.

Gert von der Osten and Horst Vey. Painting and Sculpture in Germany and the Netherlands 1500 to 1600. Baltimore, 1969, p. 145, pl. 141.

Max J. Friedländer et al. Early Netherlandish Painting. Vol. 8, Jan Gossart and Bernart van Orley. New York, 1972, pp. 56, 107, no. 124, pl. 110.

Howard Hibbard. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1980, pp. 205, 212, fig. 380 (color).

John David Farmer. "Bernard van Orley of Brussels." PhD diss., Princeton University, 1981, pp. 70–74, suggests a source for the composition in the final illustration of the Grimani Breviary, completed before 1520 by Bening's workshop; discusses the Marian symbolism.

Larry Silver. "Fountain and Source: A Rediscovered Eyckian Icon." Pantheon 41 (April–May–June 1983), pp. 101–103, ill., calls our picture an imaginative recreation of Jan van Eyck's 1439 Madonna of the Fountain (Koninklijk Museum, Antwerp).

Maryan W. Ainsworth, Selected by Guy C. Bauman, and Walter A. Liedtke in Flemish Paintings in America: A Survey of Early Netherlandish and Flemish Paintings in the Public Collections of North America. Antwerp, 1992, pp. 24, 126–28, no. 36, ill. (color, overall and detail), discusses the picture and its iconography in detail.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 271, ill.

Leo Steinberg. The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion. 2nd revised ed. [first ed. 1983]. Chicago, 1996, p. 110, fig. 11 (detail), discusses at length the Christ Child's gesture, or the "chin-chuck," a sexual embrace present in ancient art; notes that in this context spiritual love is stressed, and Christ's role as the heavenly bridegroom with the Virgin as his bride .

Mary Sprinson de Jesús 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. 25, 85, 228, 342–44, ill. (color), compares it with the Virgin and Child in an Interior (National Gallery, London) which has been ascribed to Jacques Daret, suggesting that both works are examples of a "specific and long-standing iconographic type".

Charles Sterling and Maryan W. Ainsworth in The Robert Lehman Collection. Vol. 2, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Paintings. New York, 1998, p. 24 n. 20.

Larry Silver. "Old-Time Religion: Bernart van Orley and the Devotional Tradition." Pantheon 56 (1998), pp. 81–82, ill., mentions that the "marked queenly character of the Virgin might well have been an homage to Margaret of Austria," likely the patron.

Larry Silver. "Eyckian Icons and Copies." Making Copies in European Art 1400–1600: Shifting Tastes, Modes of Transmission, and Changing Contexts. Ed. Maddalena Bellavitis. Leiden, 2018, pp. 144–46, fig. 3.9 (color).

Old Master Paintings and Sculpture. Christie's, New York. October 29, 2019, unpaginated, under no. 708.

This work may not be lent, by terms of its acquisition by The Metropolitan Museum of Art.