(Siegen 1577–1640 Antwerp)
Madonna and Child,
oil on canvas, 92 x 72 cm, framed

Provenance:
German nobility;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 14 October 2008, lot 112;
Private European collection

Provenance:

German nobility;
sale, Dorotheum, Vienna, 14 October 2008, lot 112;
Private European collection

Literature:
M. Jaffé, Rubens, Milan, 1989, p. 205, fig. 296

There are several workshop replicas of this composition by Rubens, which were unknown to Michael Jaffé. In his catalogue raisonné, Jaffé lists the following paintings: 1) Hermitage, St. Petersburg (acquired by Empress Catharine II), 2) the (lost) version, probably the original, acquired from Rubens in 1615 for 300 guilders by Archduke Albrecht and Archduchess Isabella, the governors of the Spanish Netherlands (compare the engraving based on it by Jonas Suyderhoef), 3) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, ex Collection Michael Friedsam, 4) Baron Christiani Collection, Antwerp (1913), 5) Alain Waltregny Collection, Liège, 6) H. B. Trevor-Cox Collection, sale, Christie’s, London, 27 June 1975.

What speaks in favour of Rubens’s intervention in this painting from his workshop are, among other things, the pentimenti visible in the child’s right hand, which is around the mother’s neck. Rubens might have overpainted the knuckles, which had turned out to be too strong, and elongated the fingertips for the sake of more harmony, as is suggested by the brighter tones of colour.