Poppy Harvey-Jones
Head of Sale
Lot 15
Circle of Cornelis van Cleve(Antwerp 1520-1569)The Nativity
17 December 2020, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond StreetSold for £5,355 inc. premium
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Circle of Cornelis van Cleve (Antwerp 1520-1569)
The Nativity
oil on panel
110.6 x 83.4cm (43 9/16 x 32 13/16in).
oil on panel
110.6 x 83.4cm (43 9/16 x 32 13/16in).
Footnotes
The composition of the present work is known in two versions by van Cleve: one in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (inv. no. 810), and the other in the John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota (inv. no. SN 201). The current composition comes closest to the Dresden painting although elements of the background have been changed or added.
Ultimately, the basic composition of this group of works is derived from Raphael. The image of the kneeling Madonna lifting a veil to reveal the sleeping Christ Child comes from his Madonna of the Diadem in the Louvre, Paris (inv. no. 1497). The most direct source, however, is most probably the large, squared tapestry cartoon by Tommaso Vincidor now in the Louvre (inv. no. 4269). Vincidor, a pupil of Raphael, had used his master's conception for the Madonna of the Diadem to prepare cartoons for tapestries commissioned by Pope Leo X. The tapestries were to be woven in Brussels and so he took the Louvre cartoon to Flanders himself in 1520.
