Wikipedia

Madonna and Child Playing with the Veil

The Madonna and Child Playing With the Veil, is a devotional painting finished around 1520-1530 by the Flemish High Renaissance painter Jan Gossaert. It is housed in the Mauritshuis museum of The Hague, Netherlands.

Madonna and Child Playing With the Veil
ArtistJan Gossaert (Mabuse)
Year1520–1530
TypeOil on wood
Dimensions25.4 cm × 18.3 cm (10.0 in × 7.2 in)
LocationMauritshuis, The Hague

Composition edit

This work is one of the most copied works of Gossaert (Mabuse) with over twenty known copies dated to within a decade of the (unspecified) original, and depicts the Virgin with the Christ child with both arms above His head, playing with Mary's veil. Many copies were documented by Max Jakob Friedländer.[1]

Symbolism edit

Most of the known copies follow the original quite closely, but include different objects in the foreground and background. Most copies were probably made for a specific church or mecenas, though this information has often been lost. According to the RKD, a copy hangs in the Palencia Cathedral.[2] This natural pose of Christ playing with the veil seems to have become quite popular, and two copies are known that have been done by the contemporary painter Pauwels Coeke van Aelst, the bastard half-brother of Pieter van Aelst.[3][4]

This devotional subject is not to be confused with other devotional Mabuse Madonnas (or the one at the National Gallery which is also dated 1520[5]) posed without a veil, that includes a disguised portrait. An example is the one identified as Anna van Bergen, the wife of Adolf of Burgundy, and that was also copied many times.[6][7] A similar Mabuse Madonna without a veil that was also a disguised portrait was made for Jean Carondelet in the Diptich of Jean Carandelet and his wife that hangs today in the Louvre, but was painted for the Besançon Cathedral. According to Van Mander in 1604, there were many copies of Mabuse Madonnas to be found in Middelburg.[7]

Copies attributed to Gossaert edit

  •  
    other version in Brazil
  •  
    other version with white lily and cherries
  •  
    Other version with orange in the foreground and a version of Flight into Egypt in the background.
  •  
    Version in Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Mansi, Lucca

Other copies edit

References edit

  1. ^ 51126 record in the RKD
  2. ^ 51151 in Palencia, Spain, according to the RKD
  3. ^ Pauwels copied Mabuse very neatly according to Karel van Mander
  4. ^ 51134 in the RKD by Pauwels Coeke van Aelst, now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp
  5. ^ Version Archived 2010-11-05 at the Wayback Machine in National Gallery
  6. ^ Anna van Bergen as Mary in Mabuse Madonna painting sponsored by her husband Adolf of Burgundy, according to The Met
  7. ^ a b (in Dutch) Mabuse in Karel van Mander's Schilderboeck, 1604, courtesy of the Digital library for Dutch literature
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