Object data
oil on panel
support: height 37 cm × width 27.8 cm
Bernard van Orley (workshop of)
The Virgin and Child
c. 1520 - c. 1530
Inscriptions
- inscription, along the edges of the Virgin’s cloak: [PULCRA].EST.MARIA.MATER.GRACIE.PLE[NA] // MATER.MISERECORDIE. TOTA (in part from “Tota pulchra es, Maria”)
Technical notes
The panel consists of two vertically grained oak planks (15.1 and 10.7 cm), approx. 0.4 cm thick. The panel was planed down and cradled. Strips of approx. 0.5-0.7 cm were added on all sides (original size: 35.5 x 26.3 cm). The ground layer could not be detected, so it is not certain whether it was applied up to the edges of the panel. Traces of an underdrawing in a dry medium, consisting of hatchings and contours, are visible to the naked eye and with infrared photography in the reds. The Virgin and Child were reserved. The paint layers were applied in a rather precise and refined manner, with highlights in the hair and the lettering on the Virgin’s cloak. The embroidered gold decoration of the cloak extends across the added strips, but the text is not legible there.
Scientific examination and reports
- condition report: I. Verslype, RMA, 19 July 2007
Condition
Fair. There are areas measuring approx. 1.5-2.5 cm of discoloured overpaint at the top and bottom. The varnish is slightly discoloured.
Provenance
…; collection Cornelis Hoogendijk (1866-1911), The Hague, before 1902;1 from whom on loan to the museum (inv. no. C-868), 1907-11; donated to the museum from Hoogendijk’s estate, 1912; on loan to the Gemeentemuseum, Weert, since 1993
Object number: SK-A-2567
Credit line: Gift of the heirs of C. Hoogendijk, The Hague
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Bernard van Orley (Brussels c. 1487/88 - Brussels 1542), workshop of
Bernard van Orley was the eldest of two sons from the first marriage of the Brussels painter Valentin van Orley. Since the latter’s second marriage took place on 13 May 1490, both brothers must have been born before that date. Valentin was born in 1466, so he probably married around 1486. Bernard van Orley was therefore probably born in 1487 or 1488. Valentin van Orley was an illegitimate descendant of the noble D’Orley family of Luxembourg, and an inheritance from Valentin’s legitimate brother left Bernard a wealthy man.
Bernard van Orley was probably trained by his father, and is likely to have taken over the workshop when his father left for Antwerp in 1512. Bernard married Agnes Seghers before 24 December of that year. The assumption that he himself became a free master in Antwerp in 1517 is based on a misreading of the guild ledgers. On 23 May 1518, Bernard was appointed court painter to Margaret of Austria, a position he held until 1527, when he allowed a Lutheran to preach in his house. Among the attendants were several weavers and Van Orley’s only apprentice known by name, Aerdeken van den Bruggen. After this event Van Orley lost his position as court painter. In 1532 he was reappointed by Margaret’s successor Mary of Hungary, in whose service he remained until his death in 1542. In addition to work for Margaret of Austria, Van Orley received commissions from other nobles such as Mencia de Mendoza and Christian II of Denmark, as well as from secular and religious institutions like the almoners’ guild in Antwerp and the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross in Veurne.
The earliest documented payment is dated 1515 and relates to a series of six currently unidentified portraits for the court. His first signed and dated painting (1519) is also a portrait,2 and he continued to be a sought-after portraitist. The Altarpiece of Sts Thomas and Matthias is regarded as his first known major work,3 while other important commissions included the signed Virtue of Patience dated 1521,4 and The Last Judgement with the Seven Works of Charity of 1518-24.5 His last commission was the Calvary epitaph for Margaret of Austria, which he left unfinished on his death in 1542.6 A transcription of the inscription on his lost tombstone in the Brussels Church of St Géry gives 6 January 1541 as the date of his death (1542 in the new style).
According to Van Mander, Van Orley was the teacher of Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Michiel Coxie. His only documented pupil was Aerdeken van den Bruggen, about whom nothing further is known. Van Orley’s four sons may at some time have played a role in his workshop, but none of them has left an identified oeuvre. His son Hieronymus is documented as the keeper of some of Bernard’s designs on 20 October 1542, and some of his 17th and 18th-century descendants were painters.
In addition to his large attributed oeuvre of portraits and religious subjects, Bernard van Orley is well known as a designer of large series of tapestries, and monumental church windows. A relative large percentage of his oeuvre stands out for its unusual iconography, indicating unique commissions and less dependence on the open market. His paintings are characterised by the use of exuberant colouring, fantastic Renaissance architectural ornamentation, and sometimes a remarkable attention to human anatomy. As a result, Van Orley has enjoyed a persistent reputation as a so-called ‘Romanist’ and follower of Raphael. His extant works, however, show that he used models and motifs from various artistic centres in Italy as well as the Netherlands and Germany.
References
Van Mander 1604, fol. 211r; Wauters 1892; Friedländer VIII, 1930, pp. 78-135; Vollmer in Thieme/Becker XXVI, 1932, pp. 48-50; Le Maire 1943, pp. 167-90; ENP VIII, 1973, pp. 51-81; Farmer 1981, pp. 6-48; Miedema II, 1995, pp. 324-31; Ainsworth in Turner 1996, XXIII, pp. 524-28; Ainsworth 2006, pp. 99-112; Galand 2013, pp. 33-84
(L. Hendrikman)
Entry
This Virgin, whose cheek touches that of the Christ Child, is based on the Byzantine Elousa type, or Virgin of Tenderness. The best-known example of the type is the Italo-Byzantine Madonna of Cambrai, bequeathed to the Cambrai Cathedral in 1426 as an original work by St Luke, on which many early Netherlandish paintings were based.7 Interestingly there is an extract from a Marian hymn inscribed along the edges of the Virgin’s cloak.8
This is one of the three known versions of this Virgin and Child, and was published as a work by Bernard van Orley by Friedländer in 1909.9 A second version is in Pommersfelden (Schönborn Castle), while the whereabouts of a third, which was with the Hague art dealer K.W. Bachstitz in 1932, are unknown.10
Friedländer described the painting in connection with another Virgin and Child in Ottawa, and dated both of them c. 1520.11 The work in Ottawa also provided the clue for the attribution to Van Orley because it was the left half of a diptych with the portrait of Margaret of Austria on the other half, whose court painter Van Orley was.12 Friedländer considered that the Rijksmuseum version was the equal of the one in the Hague gallery,13 but Baldass felt that the latter was a later version derived from the one in the Rijksmuseum, and suspected that the Pommersfelden panel was the original.14 Going by the available photographs, the Amsterdam version is the best of the three. In the other two there is no text on the trim of the cloak. The one formerly in the art gallery has an aureole around the Virgin’s head, and a veil has been added over the Child’s body, the originality of which is doubtful. The delicacy of the Virgin’s face in the Amsterdam panel argues for the attribution to Bernard van Orley, and is very comparable to those in other paintings which are generally accepted as being by him.15 This is underscored by the affinity with the Ottawa Virgin and Child. The faces have the same slightly elongated shape, closed eyes, small mouth with full lips, long nose and light blush on the cheeks. The hair is also meticulously rendered. This type is easily distinguishable from similar Virgins from the workshops of Quinten Massijs and Joos van Cleve.
The main factors arguing against the attribution to Bernard van Orley include the decidedly feeble depiction of the Virgin’s hands. Their rather unconvincing anatomy, the exaggeratedly long fingers and nails are atypical for Van Orley, who tended to paint chubby, expressive hands. The underdrawing, too, provides insufficient indications for a more precise attribution. Too little is known about the division of labour in Van Orley’s workshop to speculate about whether or not the master would have touched up a face in an assistant’s product. It seems unlikely, though, that more than one hand was responsible for a work produced in a relatively small series.
(L. Hendrikman/J.P. Filedt Kok)
Literature
Friedländer 1909, pp. 26-29 (as Van Orley); Bangel 1915, pp. 175-76; Baldass 1917, p. 3 (as Van Orley); Friedländer VIII, 1930, p. 176, no. 136a (as Van Orley); Baldass 1944, p. 149 (as Van Orley); ENP VIII, 1972, pp. 109-10, no. 136a (as copy after Van Orley)
Collection catalogues
1912, p. 383, no. 1793a; 1934, p. 214, no. 1793a; 1976, p. 426, no. A 2567 (as attributed to Van Orley)
Citation
L. Hendrikman, 2010, 'workshop of Bernard van Orley, The Virgin and Child, c. 1520 - c. 1530', in J.P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.4884
(accessed 22 November 2024 22:28:07).