(Antwerp 1520-after 1570) attributed to Madonna with the Christ Child, oil on panel, 71 x 52 cm, framed

This painting is based on a lost composition by Leonardo da Vinci, which has come down to posterity only in an adaptation by Giovanni Pedrini, known as Giampietrino, the background of which is very similar to that of this work. Following Giampietrino’s design, Joos van Cleve and his workshop produced a large number of variants of this Leonardesque precedent in the 1530s and ‘40s, which they decorated, however, in the characteristic style of Antwerp Mannerism. Based on the cherries which Christ is holding in his hands as a symbol of his later passion, this type has been given the name, ‘The Madonna with the cherries’. Unlike the present painting there are architectonic elements in almost all of the Madonnas produced by the Cleve workshop, which turn the original Lombardian composition into characteristic works of the late northern Renaissance in Antwerp. This painting, on the other hand, is nearer to the original precedent in its calm use of colour than the versions produced by the Antwerp workshop, so that one can assume direct knowledge of the original. Of all of Cleve’s collaborators inspired by this prototype, his son, Cornelius is most likely since his later oeuvre clearly betrays an Italian influence, in particular that of Andrea del Sarto. It is thus probable that he spent some time in Italy whence he returned in 1540 on the death of his father. Since this work was painted on oak panel, it must have been produced after 1540. That Cornelis van Cleve turned his attention to Leonardo’s composition, as passed down by Giampietrino, is proven by a panel painting in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (inv. no. WAF 489), which is very similar to this work. Our painting may be the work sold by Friedländer on the New York art market. Stylistically and in its relative compositional simplicity and, indeed, in its landscape, it is closer to Lombardian precedents than the work of the artist’s father. It is thus an important testament to the artistic exchange between Flanders and Italy.