MAÎTRE AU PERROQUET ou CORNELIS BAZELAERE (Anvers début XVIème), attribué

Virgin and Child and Saint John the Baptist, circa 1530 Important oil on panel of the Antwerp School circa 1930. Size : 67 x 55 cm The Virgin with an oval face is seated with Jesus standing beside her, playing with St. John the Baptist. A diadem with pearls going down to her forehead, she is richly dressed as the Master liked to represent her, referring to the aristocrats of the Austrian-Hungarian Court. In the foreground we see a bouquet of flowers, fruit, a book and a small sheep on an entablature and in the background seven different scenes with figures. A painter of figures and religious compositions, this Antwerp master, who lived in the first half of the 16th century and remained anonymous for a long time, was so designated by Mr. J. Friedländer because of the parrot which, without having the value of a signature, appears on some of his Madonna paintings and with which the Child plays. In 2017, he was identified as Cornelis Bazelaere, mentioned in the Antwerp Guild in 1523. His depictions of the Virgin and Child and St. Magdalene, portrayed as young aristocrats, dressed in the fashion of around 1530, bring him closer mainly to his contemporary, the Master of the Half-Figures, with whom his highly mannerist style and mode of production are sometimes confused, and more rarely to the figures of Pieter Coeck of Aalst, both of whom were followers of Joos van Clève. The type of the Virgin, the oval of her face, the expression of her features, the slender fingers and the elongated body of the Child are common to both artists, who never ceased to pay a disguised tribute to the ideal and sensitive grace of the noble women of the court of Margaret of Austria and Mary of Hungary. Provenance: Private collection, Belgium.