(active in Antwerp, first half of the 16th Century)
The Virgin and Child in a landscape,
oil on panel, 39.6 x 28.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Peter van den Brink for confirming the attribution.

To this day scholars have failed to clarify the identity of the so-called Master of the Female Half-Lengths. This name derives from the painter’s favourite subject matter: beautiful ladies in exquisite garments, whom he usually depicted down to the waist. In the past the master was associated with Jean Clouet and the Flemish painters Lucas de Heere and Hans Vereycke, but none of these names has prevailed. The artist’s works follow in the wake of the painting tradition of Bruges exemplified by Adriaen Isenbrant and Ambrosius Benson, but they also reveal the influence of the Antwerp painter Joachim Patinir. The painter was probably trained in Bruges and in the first decade of the sixteenth century moved to Antwerp, where he ran a flourishing workshop.

In proportion to his genre-like scenes depicting female half-length figures reading, singing, or making music, religious themes are rare in the artist’s oeuvre. In his small-sized Madonna paintings his trademark remains recognisable in the elegant appearance of his figures. In the present painting, the Madonna is shown against a wide landscapes backdrop betraying Patinir’s influence. Comparable works by his hand can now be found in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.