Albert Cornelis and Associates, 'The Virgin and Child in a Landscape', probably early 1520s

The Virgin Mary sits on the ground under a horse chestnut tree, breastfeeding the Christ Child; the brown object in her right hand is possibly a chestnut. During the Renaissance, images of Mary feeding her son would have reminded viewers of her role as humanity’s most important intercessor with Christ.

The composition is an echo of Robert Campin’s popular Virgin in the Apse, many versions of which were made in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, among them The Virgin and Child in an Apse with Two Angels.

Behind the Virgin, we see horsemen riding along a road and, on the right, an adult Saint John the Baptist accompanied by a lamb, looking rather like a man walking a dog. In the distance is a walled town on the banks of an estuary. The great towers are three of the towers of Bruges, where Cornelis worked, but it is an imaginary town.

The Virgin’s head and hands are stylised and simplified in the same way as in other paintings by Albert Cornelis, and are almost certainly by Cornelis himself. The landscape, however, is different to that in other paintings by Cornelis – compare this to The Magdalen in a Landscape. It was perhaps the work of a different landscape specialist, who worked in a style derived from Joachim Patinir.

Round paintings were fairly common in the Low Countries – Hieronymus Bosch and his followers were fond of circular compositions – although it is possible that this was painted for the Italian market. It was probably exported to Italy shortly after it was painted, and the name on the back, ‘GREGORIO ALBERTI’, may be that of an early owner.