Follower of Rogier van der Weyden, circa 1480

We are grateful to Dr. Hélène Mund for confirming the attribution on the basis of photographs, and for identifying the arms as those of Philip of Burgundy, sieur de Bièvre, son of Antoine, bastard of Burgundy and Jeanne de la Viesville. Antoine was the illegitimate child of Philip III, Duke of Burgundy and his mistress Jeanne de Presle; his portrait by Rogier van der Weyden, dated to circa 1460, is in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels. Philip of Burgundy married Anne of Borsele; her arms, however, are absent from the present panel. Dr. Mund notes (private communication, 28 October 2009), that even at the end of the fifteenth century, van der Weyden's model drawings were still in the stock of his workshop (see H. Mund, 'Original, copy and influence: A complex issue', in Rogier van der Weyden, 1400-1464: Master of the Passions, Louvain, 2009, pp. 186-205). Another picture with armorial bearings is one painted for the Brugean apothecary Martin Reynhout and his wife Barbe van Rockaringen (Brussels, Musées Royaux, inv. no. 330).

We are grateful to Mr. Ludwig Meyer for suggesting a date of circa 1480 for this example of the Maria lactans devotional type, and for attributing it to a pupil or collaborator in the immediate following of Rogier van der Weyden on the basis of photographs. The type derives from van der Weyden's Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin (Boston, Museum of Fine Arts), as discussed by M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Paintings, II: 'Rogier van der Weyden', 1975, under nos. 106 and 107.