The Painting: In a family scene set in the corner of a windowed room a man and woman sit around a small table, the woman breastfeeding her infant. To the left, a red curtain hangs from the ceiling, falling behind the woman and child. As a complement to this vermilion cloth, the man serving soup from a vessel wears similarly hued robes. Two bowls and two loaves of bread form a still life on the circular table, along with a teardrop-shaped beaker and a shallow dish in which stands a third, smaller bowl.
The subject of this painting, the Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, is depicted simply as a contemporary family in a domestic interior. Viewers, recognizing the sacred subject matter, would be encouraged to model their own family life after the paragons of virtue found in the painting. In addition, the picture would have stimulated reflection on the physical and divine nourishment provided by Christ as embodied, in this instance, by his mother.
Attribution and Dating: Several features of the Lehman painting place it at some distance from Gerard David. Indeed, the awkward stiffness of the figures’ hands – a feature David rendered with characteristic refined gracefulness – emphasize the painter’s less successful attempts at naturalistic detail. In some areas, drapery folds are described in paint with a regularity that distracts from any establishment of three-dimensional form, as in the Christ Child’s white cloth or the Virgin’s proper left sleeve. The paint handling of the flesh tones establishes contrast between the ruddier complexion of Joseph and the more luminous skin of the Virgin and her newborn, which is more delicately painted. The treatment of Joseph’s facial features lacks David’s meticulous and minute execution: heavily lidded eyes lack shine and knuckles do not crease, although retouching obscures certain areas, particularly his cheeks. Christ’s small feet protrude stiffly from under Mary’s arm; her proper right hand is cupped as though to support her son, but instead, the curved extremity appears empty, positioned too far from her child’s body. Despite these elements, that are anachronistic of David and his most talented followers, the Lehman painter included details such as Mary’s shining curls of hair and dewy lower lip which, despite being standard for depictions of the Virgin, also demonstrate some attention to delicate visual effects.
Another
Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, close in dimensions, reinforces the suggestion that the Lehman picture was created in the context of the open market.[1] The work in question, last recorded in the London collection of Horace Buttery and not listed by Max J. Friedländer in his volume on David, replicates the composition of the Lehman painting, although they are not identical.[2] Of note is the presence of a dotted line that follows some major contours of the Buttery picture, suggesting the use of pouncing, a technique used to transfer compositions. These lines are especially visible in the hanging cloth behind the Virgin, the folds of Joseph’s garment, the outline of Mary’s head and hands as well as the Christ Child’s body. The prominence of this pattern may be the result of increased transparency in the aging paint layers, causing the underdrawing to be visible, although further study is required to clarify its presence. Certainly, pouncing was a replication strategy employed by David and his workshop, as is illustrated in the underdrawing of the
Adoration of the Magi, a composition taken from Hugo van der Goes.[3] Like the Buttery picture, the Lehman painting is Davidian in conception.[4] It can be placed in the context of what Wolff described as the "archaizing paraphrase of the Bruges master’s prototypes."[5]
Nenagh Hathaway, 2019
[1] In her entry (1998) on the painting, Martha Wolff relates the Lehman painting to the oeuvre of Marcellus Coffermans (active 1549-1570), an artist who produced multiple similar versions of the same devotional subject. Wolff notes a closeness ‘in spirit’ between Cofferman’s
Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine and the Lehman picture. Refs., Wolff, 1998, p. 118.
[2] Max J. Friedländer includes several depictions of the Holy Family in vol. 6b of his
Early Netherlandish Painting series, see no. 206, plates 208-212. For an illustration of the Buttery
Virgin and Child with Saint Joseph, see
RKD 46293.
[3] Maryan Ainsworth discusses the use of transfer techniques in David’s atelier in
Gerard David: Purity of Vision in an Age of Transition, New York, 1998, pp. 47-52. Ainsworth also examines the contemporary attitude towards copies of the Virgin and Child in Chapter Six of the same volume.
[4] According to the RKD website (see hyperlink above, note 2), Max J. Friedländer wrote a personal note on the back of a photograph of the Buttery painting: "Cf. G. David ?".
[5] Refs., Wolff, 1998, p. 118.
ReferencesKatharine Baetjer.
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born in or before 1865: A Summary Catalogue, New York, 1980, p. 43, ill. p. 347.
Katharine Baetjer.
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 261, ill.
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, p. 406, ill.
Hans J. van Miegroet.
Gerard David. Antwerp, 1989, p. 317, no. 61. ill (as by follower of David).
