The Artist: Formerly believed to be the work of a single artist, the paintings ascribed to the Master of the Female Half-Lengths are now thought to be the combined effort of a group of artists, whose high-volume output largely consisted of depictions of fashionable ladies shown in leisurely pursuits like music-making, reading or writing. Many of these figures are shown with a small vessel, identifying their subject as the Magdalen. Devotional scenes were also produced by this group, largely small in scale and for export. Several locations have been proposed as the main base for this circle of painters, including Antwerp, Mechelen, Bruges and Ghent.[1] While several individuals were responsible for paintings attributed to the master, a scholarly effort to separate and identify these hands has not yet been attempted, nor have the works been fully documented.
The Painting: Indebted to compositions of the same subject by the fifteenth-century painter Rogier van der Weyden, this image of the infant Christ and his mother reflects the enduring popularity of such visual tropes into the sixteenth century. This diminutive painting of the Virgin and Child, which likely served as a portable devotional object, portrays the pair in a touching moment, resting in a green field. The silhouette of distant buildings punctuates the background to the pair’s right. Other structures, two with pointed roofs, occupy the landscape at left.
Clad in a deep blue mantle edged in gold, Mary gazes lovingly down at her son whom she cradles in a white cloth. The current appearance of the Virgin’s dress is unoriginal, probably the result of discoloration and subsequent retouching with brown paint; the garment would originally have been a purple-red, a color more traditionally associated with Mary as a symbol of her regal stature.[2] This image served as an aid to prayer, reminding the viewer of the tender love between mother and son and thus intensifying the beholder’s own impassioned devotions. Images like this were extremely popular in the sixteenth century, and many close variants were produced, like the
Virgin and Child (
1975.1.124) also in the Lehman Collection.
Attribution and Date: In style and composition this painting is close to several other works connected to the Female Half-Lengths group. As noted by Wolff, these include the central panel of the "Figdor Triptych" and a
Virgin and Child from the Achillito Chiesa collection.[3] Also similar to the Lehman painting is a
Virgin and Child sold at Christie’s (New York) on January 24, 2003, there attributed to the Master of the Female Half-Lengths.[4] Although this painting, like the "Figdor Triptych", differs in some features from the Lehman picture, other details connect the two works. In particular, the Virgin’s hands in both paintings display elongated, tubular fingers with large fingernails. Her hair has also been executed in a similar fashion in the two paintings: a single brown tone was used as the undermodeling, followed by application of thin lines of lighter golden brown paint to indicate individual strands of hair as they curl. The technique used to create the folds of the white cloth in which the infant savior rests is also comparable. Strokes of semi-transparent black wash were applied over a layer of white paint to suggest the shadows of folds. This economical means of indicating depth, through the simple adjustment of paint transparency, underscores the market conditions in which these paintings were created. In the downward cast of her eyes, long, straight nose, thin brows and rosebud lips, the Virgin’s features are also remarkably close.[5] These links, which reveal streamlined, serial approach to production, help to place the Lehman painting in the context of sixteenth-century market demands.
As Jean C. Wilson has convincingly argued, the repetition of compositional motifs is insufficient evidence for making attributions when it comes to works produced in the early sixteenth century.[6] The widespread sharing of patterns by painters active in Antwerp, Brussels and Bruges and the vast production of serial images, created on spec for the open market means that different artists working in separate locations were able to create paintings that closely resemble one another. Distinguishing oeuvres is thus greatly assisted by technical analysis, which can help to characterize individual working methods and style. Such research is largely outstanding for the extensive and inhomogeneous corpus of works connected to the Half-Lengths Group. It is therefore only possible to attribute the Lehman
Virgin and Child to an unidentified artist working in this close circle of painters, who borrowed their compositions and capitalized on the immense popularity of their imagery. The Lehman
Virgin and Child reflects the significant devotional value inherent in these serialized images. In fact, as Ellen Konowitz has rightly argued, this
Virgin and Child likely reflects a buyer’s awareness of a "brand name" associated with the Half-Lengths group, suggesting to the sixteenth-century marketgoer a mark of recognizable worth.[7]
Nenagh Hathaway, 2018
[1] Ellen Konowitz, "The Master of the Female Half-Lengths Group, Eclecticism, and Novelty," in
Oud Holland Vol. 113, No. 1/2 (1999); p. 4.
[2] Mircoscopy revealed the presence of blue and red pigment particles. See Martha Wolff’s condition notes in Refs., Wolff, 1998, p. 116.
[3] See Refs., Wolff, 1998, p. 116.
[4] For an illustration of this painting, see the RKD Images database, number 107775.
https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images.
[5] These features, along with highly similar details of costume, characterize many other depictions of the
Virgin and Child that have also been given to the Master of the Female Half-Lengths, although most display slight variations on what is essentially the same composition. A cursory search of the RKD’s online image database (see note 4) provides visual evidence of this phenomenon.
[6] Jean C. Wilson, "Adriaen Isenbrant and the Problem of his Oeuvre: Thoughts on Authorship, Style and the Methodology of Connoisseurship," in
Oud Holland, Vol. 109, No. 1 / 2 (1995), p. 4.
[7] Konowitz, 1999, p. 9.
References Katharine Baetjer.
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born in or before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1980. (See p. 118, ill. p. 357).
Katharine Baetjer.
European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995. (See p. 265).
Martha Wolff in Charles Sterling (et. al).
The Robert Lehman Collection, Vol. 2, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth Century European Paintings. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton: Princeton University Press 1998, pp. 115-116, no. 23, ill.
Maryan W. Ainsworth and Keith Christiansen, eds.
From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum, New York, 22 September-3 January, 1998-99. (See p. 406, ill.).
