Haarlem(?) ca. 1490 – Bruges 1551
Triptych with Madonna and Child – Joseph and the pregnant Mary – The Rest on the Flight into Egypt
Oil on panel | With later frame
H. 24 cm. W. 38 cm.
PROVENANCE
Private collection | Spain
REFERENCE LITERATURE
Friedländer, M. J. (1933). Early Netherlandish Painting. The Antwerp Mannerists, Adriaen Ysenbrant. Vol. XI, Leiden, pp. 47-58, ill. 101-105, 124-125, 133-135, nrs. 124-127, 150-152, 176-182a
Ainsworth, M. W. & Christiansen, K. (1998). From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, pp. 370-373
CATALOGUE NOTE
We are grateful to Dr Peter van den Brink, former Director of the Suermondt-Ludwig Museum, Aachen, for confirming the attribution to Adriaen Isenbrandt and workshop based on first hand examination of the work.
Adriaen Isenbrant was a Northern Renaissance painter, who from documentary evidence was clearly a significant artist of his period but to whom no specific works can be firmly documented. As hypothesized by art historians, he ran a large workshop specializing in religious subjects and devotional paintings, painting in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He became master in the Guild of Saint Luke in Bruges in 1510. These devotional paintings are notable for their reliance on models by other artists, particularly those of Gerard David, the leading painter in early 16th century Bruges and who may have been Isenbrant’s teacher. Isenbrandt may have travelled to Genoa in 1511 together with Joachim Patinir and Gerard David. The influence of Gerard David shows clearly in the composition and the landscape background of the works attributed to Isenbrant. Isenbrant married twice, the first time with Maria Grandeel, daughter of the painter Peter Grandeel. They had one child. After her death in 1537, he married again in 1547 with Clementine de Haerne. This second marriage resulted in two daughters and a son. When he died in Bruges in 1551, he was buried alongside his first wife at the cemetery of the St. Jacob Church there. His children inherited no less than four houses with surrounding property.
In the present work the influence of Gerard David can be seen clearly in the composition and the landscape background. In addition to this, we find in the oeuvre of Isenbrant pictorial ideas from Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Jan Gossart, Dürer and the Antwerp Mannerists. On more than one occasion Isenbrandt used the same compositions which Ambrosius Benson used. Where Isenbrandt displayed originality was in relation to colour, achieving a loosening and blurring of the brushwork. He almost obsessively favoured a warm palette, as is evident in the present work. Multiple glaze-like layers achieve an overall bond of often languid harmony. At times the heavy pigment layer has an almost smoked or fired aspect and this individual type of brushwork brings on a characteristic craquelure that enhances the flesh parts. Records of pictures being sent from Antwerp to Spain suggest an international reputation and production for both local and export markets until 1540.
This beautiful small triptych, with a central panel showing a landscape with Madonna and Child and outer wings with Joseph and Mary pregnant with the Christ Child and the Rest on the Flight into Egypt, has recently been given Adriaen Isenbrant and workshop. The Flight into Egypt, as shown on the left wing, was a commonly painted theme by Isenbrandt. Popular during the early 16th century due to the prevalence of the Modern Devotion, a religious movement focused on empathetic responses to the suffering of Christ and the Virgin, the devoted viewer was encouraged to follow the Holy Family’s arduous journey as they fled persecution by King Herod. Small, portable, intended for private devotion and to engage the viewer in an empathic contemplation of the Life of the Virgin, the present triptych can be compared to another small triptych by Isenbrant kept in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York (inv.nr. 13.32a-c; Ainsworth, 1998, pp. 370-373).