(Ghent and/or Bruges active circa 1490–1509)
Virgin and Child,
oil on gold ground panel, shaped top, 33 x 25.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Turin

The oeuvre of the Master of the Khanenko Adoration was first assembled by M. J. Friedländer in 1926, and was so named for a diptych of the Adoration of the Magi in the then Khanenko Collection, which now forms part of the Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Kiev. Stylistically, the master’s works exhibit affinities with the oeuvre of Hugo van der Goes, placing his workshop either in Ghent or Bruges. Friedländer further identified a Virgin and Child (Stuttgart, Staatsgalerie), whose background is redolent of the work of Gerard David and Joachim Patinir.

In the present composition, the distinctive typology of the moon-shaped head of the virgin, which would have been available as a model for the workshop, recurs also in the Master of the Khanenko Adoration’s Kiev and Stuttgart panels as well in the master’s Virgin and Child (Dessau, Staatliche Galerie.) A related composition is registered in the RKD (under no. 1001255375 - as Meester van de Aanbidding van Khanenko) conserved in the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.