Circle of the Master of Liesborn, 'The Virgin and Child with a Donor', about 1475-90
About the work
Overview
The Virgin Mary, who is being crowned with a wreath of roses by two angels, stands holding the infant Christ in her arms. A man wearing the black habit, or uniform, of a Benedictine monk kneels on the tiled floor at the Virgin’s feet, and holds a scroll inscribed in Latin with a prayer to her. He commissioned the altarpiece and may have belonged to the monastery in Herzebrock, Westphalia, where the painting comes from.
The monk’s head is on a piece of wood that was inserted and painted in the nineteenth century. The original fragment survives in the Westphalian State Museum of Art and Culture in Münster, where other sections of the altarpiece are housed.
Key facts
Details
- Full title
- The Virgin and Child with a Donor
- Artist
- Circle of the Master of Liesborn
- Artist dates
- active second half of the 15th century
- Date made
- about 1475-90
- Medium and support
- oil on wood
- Dimensions
- 118.8 × 51.5 cm
- Acquisition credit
- Bought, 1854
- Inventory number
- NG2151
- Location
- Not on display
- Collection
- Main Collection
Provenance
NG 2151 is first recorded in 1848 in the collection of the administrator and lawyer Carl Wilhelm August Krüger at Minden, where it was described as Westphalian school; it may have been acquired with other fragments when Krüger arrived in Münster in 1826. No provenance is given for it in the Krüger catalogue. In 1854 the National Gallery acquired NG 2151 along with most of the paintings in the Krüger collection.
Additional information
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Susan Foister, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800’, London 2024; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
Exhibition history
-
2012Goldene Pracht: Mittelalterliche SchatzkunstLWL - Museum für Kunst und Kultur26 February 2012 - 28 May 2012
Bibliography
-
1848C.W.A. Krüger, Verzeichnis der Gemälde-Sammlung des Geheimen Regierungs-Rathes Krüger zu Minden, Minden 1848
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1853W. Lübke, Die mittelalterliche Kunst in Westfalen, Leipzig 1853
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1918C.G. Heise, Norddeutsche Malerei, Leipzig 1918
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1934A. Stange, Deutsche Malerei der Gotik, 11 vols, Munich 1934
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1943H. Busch, Meister des Nordens, Hamburg 1943
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1958M. Levey, 'Reconstruction of a Westphalian Altarpiece: The Herzebrock Altar', The Burlington Magazine, C, 1958, pp. 304-6
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1959Levey, Michael, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Schools, London 1959
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1967A. Stange, Der deutschen Tafelbilder vor Dürer. Kritisches Verzeichnis, Munich 1967
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1970F. Flaskamp, 'Der Maler Johannes von Soest', Soester Zeitschrift, LXXXII, 1970, pp. 47-58
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1986P. Pieper, Die deutschen, niederländischen und italienischen Tafelbilder bis um 1530, Münster 1986
-
2001
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
-
2024S. Foister, National Gallery Catalogues: The German Paintings before 1800, 2 vols, London 2024
About this record
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
Images
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