Lucas Cranach the Younger (Wittenberg 1515 - 1586), Virgin and Child with a bunch of grapes. Photo Sotheby's
signed centre right with the artist's device of a winged serpent, in the style used after 1537, and inscribed on a label on the reverse in an old hand: Tabla original de Luca Cranach./ Lla... Muller/ Nacio en Cranach cliosesi...e barnberg nEn 1472, Nacio Murio/ en Weimar en 1552 Escu...Alemana/La firma del autur...convales y/ pintor del Duque de Savolla...de 1509; oil on beechwood panel; 77.7 by 57.1 cm. : 30 5/8 by 22 1/2 in. Estimation 800,000 — 1,200,000 GBP
Provenance: With Pico Cellini Gallery, Rome, 1959;
Munich art market, 1967;
Acquired there or soon after by Friedrich Flick (1883-1972);
Bequeathed by the above to the grandfather of the present owner.
Litterature: M.J. Friedländer and J. Rosenberg, The Paintings of Lucas Cranach, London 1978, p.147, no. 389, reproduced (as Lucas Cranach the Elder).
Cranach’s depictions of the Virgin and child are amongst his most inventive, and this beautifully preserved example is no exception. Certain parts of the painting reveal a finesse of modelling that may explain both Max J. Friedlander and Ernst Buchner’s elevation of it into the oeuvre of Lucas Cranach the Elder. Particularly, the face, hands and feet of the Christ child are both supremely well drawn and brilliantly executed. The translucency of some of the glazes reveals the original underdrawing around both mouths: Christ’s was originally conceived as wider open, and the Virgin’s with a slightly more pronounced smile, such that it would have resembled more closely a related version recorded by Friedlander as in the collection of Baron von Grundherr, Vienna.1
The design was popularised in the Cranach workshop and several versions by the younger Cranach are known.2 All other versions differ from the present in showing the Virgin tilting her head to our left, and in all but one of them Christ glances to the side and the Virgin, instead, makes eye contact with us. Our direct interaction with Christ, rather than the Virgin, accentuates the power of the message before us, a message made plainer still by the simplicity of the design and the jet-black setting, foregoing all extraneous detail. The painting would have had as its purpose the stimulation of religious devotion in its spectators, both through the very overt connection between Christ and the viewer and through our contemplation of the Eucharist that he acts out before us. The triangular design, formed by the Virgin’s beautifully rendered hair that flows down in two diagonals from the top of her head, joined beneath by the horizontal of her forearms, is a direct reference to the Holy Trinity and this underscores the yet more overt reference to the Eucharist as Christ plucks a grape and places it within his lips as if acting out the words 'this is my blood' that he spoke at the Last Supper. The Virgin, relegated to a supporting role, is serene and contemplative before this, as we should be too.
Through the preceding centuries, both in northern and southern European art, the infant Christ was most commonly portrayed cradled in His mother’s arms, suckling or asleep on her chest, locked in a tender embrace, or seated in benediction of the infant St. John. While there are many prior portrayals of the Christ child standing on His mother’s lap in western art - in the north by Rogier, Schongauer, and Dürer, and in the south by Bellini, Vivarini, and other, mostly Venetian, trailblazers - the combination here of factors that elevate the Christ child to dominate three-quarters of the composition, to display himself full-frontal, and to make direct eye-contact with us, is hitherto untried and makes for one of the most explicit and unambiguous symbols of its kind in the language of Christian art to date.
The form of the serpent device, showing the wings raised and folded, dates the painting to after 1537, the point at which Lucas Cranach the Younger gained control of the workshop following the untimely death of his elder brother Hans in 1535.
The painting was certified by the late E. Buchner on 30 December 1960 when he dated it to 1525-30, the mark not mentioned and more latterly has been confirmed as the work of Lucas Cranach the Younger by both Dr. Dieter Koepplin and Dr. Werner Schade.
1. Friedlander, op. cit., p. 147, no. 388, reproduced.
2. Other than the version mentioned above, these are last recorded by Friedlander as in the N. Caro collection, Berlin (1932), and a private collection, Dortmund (1975): seeIbid., pp. 146-7, nos. 386-7, both reproduced. All are of the broadly the same width and only the Caro version is significantly taller, measuring 85cm where the others measure between 75cm and 78cm.
Sotheby's. Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale including Three Victorian Masterpieces from the Leverhulme Collection. London | 04 déc. 2013 -www.sothebys.com