By Jan Gossaert Known As Mabuse, 16th Century, Madonna And Child

By Jan Gossaert known as Mabuse, 16th century

Madonna and Child

Oil on panel, cm 62 x 43

With frame, cm 72 x 54

Written report of Prof. Didier Bodart

This Madonna with Child possesses the harmony, seraphic serenity and skill of the details typical of the great ancient masters of Flemish painting. In particular, following the thesis of Prof. Bodart, this table retakes the version of the Madonna with split hair in the middle, made by Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse (1478 -1532); unfortunately the original is lost today but there are different interpretations, One of which is kept at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, which can be objectively approached to the supposed original. The artist’s personality is emblematic of the fruitful artistic and cultural exchanges between Flanders and Italy: he was indeed among the first to make the journey through the peninsula, staying there between 1508 and 1511, Touching different places but stopping especially in Rome, where he met the ancient statuary models that will return in nudes as in the Danae of Monaco, in 'Adam and Eve of Berlin or in the Venus and Cupid of Brussels. In the future he will prove able to add up the many instances of the Flemish, such as Gerard David, Durer and Metsys, and those of the Italian painters such as Raphael, Mantegna and other contemporary artists. The craftsmanship with which the details of the draperies are executed, linear, sinuous and almost metallic in the luminous reflections, of the rosary in the hands of Jesus, of the diadem that crowns the Virgin, are perfectly configured in the typical qualities of the Flemish school. Even the anatomies stand out with a certain three-dimensionality, evident in the limbs of the child, while the lenticular attention of the hair is enhanced even more in the games of light that strike them.