(active in Antwerp ca. 1520)
The Virgin and Child beneath a canopy,
oil on panel, 51.4 x 41 cm, framed

The present painting has repeatedly been associated with Pieter Coecke van Aelst, however, the attribution to the Master of the Parrot seems more convincing. The artists subsumed under this name of convenience were probably trained in the workshop of Pieter Coecke. The name ‘Master of the Parrot’ was first given to an individual artist who was identified by several paintings displaying the Christ Child supported on his mother’s arm and feeding parrots (cf. M. J. Friedländer, Der Meister mit dem Papagei, in: Phoebus, 2, 1948/49, pp. 49ff.). Subsequently, further works were also assigned to this master’s oeuvre. Today it is assumed that this name does not identify an individual artist, but an entire workshop comprising several painters (cf. Th. Poilvache-Lambert, Une vierge et enfant dans un paysage, attribution à un artiste de l’entourage de Pieter Coeck, le Maître au Perroquet, in: Revue des Archéologues et Historiens d’art de Louvain, 17, 1984, pp. 118–42) who collaborated in the creation of devotional paintings for patrician families. Although they were innovative as far as the invention of pictorial space and the naturalistic description of reality are concerned, these Netherlandish artists also abided by tradition, referring to previous pictorial solutions. The unusual and intimate iconography of the present work is based on a composition from Quentin Massy’s early period. Jan Gossaert and the van Cleve workshop subsequently also used this motif. Both the still-life elements and the genre-like background are remarkable. The lobed top is also a typical feature of the Master of the Parrot, as are the elements reminiscent of still lifes (compare his Madonna and Child in San Diego, featuring a similar vase of flowers).