The Madonna with the sleeping child,
oil on panel, 58.5 x 41.5 cm, framed

This example of Early Netherlandish art constitutes a masterpiece of an anonymous painter – most likely the artist known as the Master of the Parrot. Almost certainly produced for private devotion, the painting represents the young and beautiful Mary nursing the sleeping Infant Christ.

This image was a particularly popular one in early 16th-century Flanders. Examples of similar compositions are known by Quinten Massys (fig. 1) and Joos van Cleve (fig. 2). Max J. Friedländer writes that the Master of the Parrot, so named for the idiosyncratic, exotic birds that often appear in his compositions, was a contemporary of the likewise anonymous Master of the Female Half-Lengths. Both are thought to have been active in Antwerp or possibly Bruges in the 1520s and 1530s. The Master of the Parrot’s paintings betray the influence of Italianate artists of the generation following Quinten Massys and Bernard van Orley, who worked in that region. Particular similarities may be found in the oeuvre of Pieter Coecke van Aelst. Among the most distinguished South Netherlandish painters of the 16th century, Pieter Coecke became a master in Antwerp’s Guild of Saint Luke in 1527 and maintained a large and productive workshop where it is likely the Master of the Parrot began his career. In fact, many of the works now given to the Master of the Parrot were formerly attributed to that artist.

Additional image:
Fig. 1: Studio of Quinten Massys, Ghent, Museum voor Schone Kunsten
Fig. 2: Joos van Cleve, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum