Workshop of Goossen van der Weyden, 'The Visitation of the Virgin to Saint Elizabeth', about 1516

On the reverses of NG1082 and NG1084 are impressions in red wax of two seals. The same two seals are on the reverse of NG 6499, The Virgin and Child with Musical Angels by the Master of the Saint Bartholomew Altarpiece, which may have accompanied the Visitation and the Flight into the Noble and Aders collections. The first seal, showing the letters VG in monogram beneath a coronet, is presumably that of a nobleman whose initials were GV or VG. The second seal shows an oval shield beneath a coronet. The shield is surperimposed upon a cross of Malta entwined with a string of beads from which hangs a smaller Maltese cross. The charges on the shield are: on a chief three six-pointed stars; a palm tree; and an animal which stands on its hind legs and rests its front legs against the tree. This seal would appear to be that of a chaplain (Cappellano professo) of the Order of Malta. The coat of arms seems to be that of the southern French family of Amblard de las Martres, which is described by Rietstap as D’azur à une martre d’arg., ramp. contre un palmier de sin., terrassé du même; au chef de sa., chargé de trois étoiles d’or. Jean Marie d’Amblard, Marquis de Las Martres, premier piqueur to Louis XV of France and apparently the last of his line, married a lady who was born in 1702 and who died his widow in 1771. No connection, however, has been found between the Marquis and the Order of Malta and very little is known about his near relations. The two seals, and consequently two early owners of the paintings, remain unidentified.

On 6–7 April 1796 a gentleman named Noble sold at Christie’s ‘John Van Eyck – 52 The flight into Egypt, highly finished’ and ‘Ditto – 53 The visitation, companion to the above’; they were bought in (lot 52 at 11½ guineas: £12 1s. 6d; lot 53 at 4½ guineas: £4 14s. 6d). According to Weale, they were the two paintings now in the National Gallery. This seems likely but there are no proofs: the source of Weale’s information has not been discovered. The seller, Mr Noble, was perhaps William Noble, a wealthy drawing master who collected pictures, prints and drawings, lived in Great Russell Street in London, knew the diarist Farington and died in 1805. The two panels were by 1817 in the collection of Karl Aders (1780–1846), a German merchant residing in London. They were auctioned with the rest of the Aders collection at Foster’s on 1 August 1835 (nos 79, 80), when they were bought, for £37 16s. and £42 8s. respectively, by the surgeon Joseph Henry Green (1791–1863). He lived at The Mount, Hadley, near Barnet; they were nos 10 and 5 in a list of his pictures drawn up after his death. His collection passed to his widow Anne Eliza (née Hammond), who died in 1879. By her will of 21 December 1865, she bequeathed to the National Gallery ‘all my pictures painted by Dutch or Flemish Artists’. Her bequest was received in 1880.