Altarpiece of the Virgin [central panel]: Virgin and Child

The panel is the central panel of a triptych; the wings show St Catherine at the left and St Barbara at the right (both Brno, Czech republic, Moravska Galerie. [1]

[1] First reconstructed by Curt Glaser [Glaser 1921, 225], who mistakenly refers to the wings as having been cut down.

[Cat. Kress Collection 1977, 25, K1595]

The panel was placed by Friedländer c. 1514 and given to Lucas Cranach the Elder; he described the painting as powerful in concept and richly colored.[1] Flechsig dated it c. 1513.[2] He noted that it cannot readily be placed in tlle development of Cranach in view of the very large scale of the figures and the unusually severe mood. He related the panel to the Adoration of the Magi at Gotha (Landesmuseum), where the Virgin and Child are somewhat similar in sentiment, and found it contemporary with the large altar in the Johanneskirche (by Neustadt a.d. Orla, 1513).[3] Heyck also commented on the somewhat uncharacteristic qualities of it, finding it 'Cranachish'.[4]

Glaser discovered that the painting was the central panel of a triptych, whose wings were then in the Liechtenstein Collection. He dated the panel c.1513-14.[5]

Friedländer and Rosenberg, following Flechsig's views very closely, dated it c. 1513; they pointed out derivation from Dürer's engraving of 1511, the Virgin and Child with a Pear (n.4I), and noted that 1513, the year in which it was probably painted, was the one in which Dürer sent several of his prints to Frederick the Wise.[6] They suggested that the unusually large size and somewhat flat, impersonal execution point to the Madonna and Child as being a workshop product.[7]

[1] Max J. Friedlander, review, 'Die Cranach-Ausstellung in Dresden', Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, XXII, 1899, p. 214, cat. no. 116, p. 246.

[2] Eduard Flechsig, Tafelbilder Lucas Cranachs d. Ä. und seiner Werkstatt, Leipzig, 1900, cat. no. 17.

[3] Eduard Flechsig, Cranachstudien, Leipzig, 1900, I, pp. 98-9, p. 282, cat. no. 116.

[4] E. Heyck, Lukas Cranach, Bielefeld-Leipzig, 1908, p. 67.

[5] Curt Glaser, Lukas Cranach, Leipzig, 1921, p. 225.

[6] Max J. Friedländer and Jakob Rosenberg, Die Gemälde von Lucas Cranach, Berlin, 1932, p. 37, cat. no. 41; the wings are pp. 37-8, Cat. No. 42. Two other Dürer engravings might also be mentioned: n.35 of 1513 in which a similar wooden frame appears and D.43 of c. 1512.

[7] Friedländer-Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 37-8.

[Cat. Kress Collection 1977, 25, K1595]