Beschreibung:

SIMON BENING (C. 1483-1561) Virgo inter virgines (The Virgin Among Virgins), in a landscape [Bruges, c.1530s–40s] a miniature on vellum, laid down on wood, c.280×190mm including a narrow gold border on all sides, depicting the Virgin Mary seated with the Christ-child on her lap; he holds a white carnation(?) in his left hand and with his right reaches to place a gold ring on the finger of St Catherine, who kneels to the left; she is crowned, dressed in a rich blue and gold brocade, and has placed a book on a grassy bank behind her; in front of her St Barbara(?) sits holding a chalice above which a wafer hovers on the open pages of a Breviary in a chemise binding; she is finely dressed with lettering around the edges; St Agnes sits in the right foreground looking directly out at the viewer, holding a rosary and with a lamb at her side; behind her St Margaret sits with a book and the cross with which she escaped from the dragon’s belly; and to her side sits St Dorothy(?) who leans towards the Christ Child with a red circlet; overall in very fine condition: the upper right corner has lifted from its support, and there are a few small areas of pigment loss near the edges, notably in the landscape behind St Catherine; the white clouds with grey undersides are unusual: it could be that this area has been retouched, or the grey may be lead white that has oxidised; the draperies of St Dorothy(?) are unusual in that they change from blue to purple at about the level of the knee: the blue must be original, however, as it can be seen through the halo of St Agnes, so it may be that the purple was intended as a base layer, and the artist for some reason failed to continue the blue overpaint below the level of the knees; overall in very fine condition AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE MINIATURE ON AN UNUSUALLY GRAND SCALE, BY SIMON BENING "THE GREATEST MASTER OF THE ART OF ILLUMINATION IN ALL OF EUROPE", AND PROBABLY A SECOND ARTIST, THAT HAS NOT BEEN SEEN BY ART HISTORIANS FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY PROVENANCE Adalbert Freiherr von Lanna (1836–1909), of Prague, distinguished collector and connoisseur (of whom Frits Lugt wrote, ‘perhaps the second half of the nineteenth century did not have another who was endowed with such a sure eye’); sold by Lepke in Berlin, 21–28 March 1911, lot 338; probably bought at the sale by Heinemann, the Berlin art dealer: seen in his possession by Max Friedlander in 1913 (as recorded in the online database of the RDK – Netherlands Institute for Art History); apparently part of his private collection, and taken to Geneva during the War; by descent to a grandson who gifted it to the current owner. SUBJECT AND COMPOSITION This is a version of an subject usually called the Virgo inter virgines, in which the Virgin Mary is surrounded by other virgin saints, often with the Christ-child about to place a ring on St Catherine’s finger in a ‘Mystic Marriage’ (see lot 76). The present composition is believed to derive from a lost painting by Hugo van der Goes (d.1482), of which there are versions in the Royal Collection (RCIN 407817); the Alte Pinakothek, Munich (Inv. 13191); formerly in the collection of Graf Arco-Valley, Munich (Inv. A.103); and, closest of all, a panel attributed to a follower of Adriaen Isenbrandt (d.1551), a Bruges contemporary of Simon Bening now in the Galleria dell’Accademia Nazionale di San Luca, Rome. The latter is the same as the present picture in almost every detail, except that the Virgin’s has a rug under her feet, St Barbara does not have the chalice and host on her book, and St Margaret’s dress is green instead of pink. The figure in the left foreground of all these pictures is clearly based on a drawing (or the lost painting for which it was a study) attributed to van der Goes at the Courtauld Institute (inv. D.1978.PG.314), and she subsequently appears in many guises; the drawing is the point of departure for a 2003 study of the use of Flemish workshop patterns by Maryan Ainsworth. The pattern appe