Collection Arthur Sachs, New York, vers 1928 ;

Chez F. Kleinberger, Paris- New York, en 1929 ;

Collection du baron Joseph van der Elst, Vienne, en 1930 ;

Vente anonyme ; Londres, Sotheby's, 12 juillet 2001, n° 12 ;

Galerie De Jonckheere, Paris, Bruxelles, 2002-2003 ;

Galerie Richard Green, Londres, en 2004 ;

Galerie De Jonckheere, Paris ;

Acquis auprès de cette dernière par les actuels propriétaires en 2006 ;

Collection particulière, France

Loan exhibition of Flemish Primitives in aid for free milk fund for babies, New York, Kleinberger Galleries, 1929, p. 124, n° 39

Exposition internationale. Section d'art ancien, Anvers, juin-septembre 1930, n° 180bis

Nederlandse Primitiven, Laren, Singer Museum, 1er juillet - 10 septembre 1961, n° 76, selon une étiquette au verso

Max Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, Leyde, 1928, vol. VI, p. 141, n° 152, pl. LXIII (réed. 'Early Netherlandish Paintings, VIa. Hans Memling and Gerard David', Bruxelles, 1971, p. 63, n° 152, repr. pl. 160)

Wolfgang Schöne, Dieric Bouts und seine Schule, Berlin, 1938, note 140b

Nicole Verhaegen, " Le Maître de la Légende de Sainte Lucie. Précisions sur l'œuvre ", in Bulletin de l'Institut royal du patrimoine artistique, Bruxelles, 1959, p. 80, n° 2

Roger van Schoute, 'La chapelle royale de Grenade. Les primitifs flamands', in Corpus de la Peinture des Anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux, Bruxelles, 1963, vol. I, p. 25-26

Albert Pomme de Mirimonde, " La musique chez les peintres de la fin de l'ancienne école de Bruges ", in Jaarboek Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerpen, Anvers, 1976, p. 52-53

Dirk de Vos, « Nieuwe toeschrijvingen aan de Meester van de Lucialegende, alias de Meester van de Rotterdamse Johannes op Patmos », Oud Holland, 1976, vol. 90, n° 3, p. 140 

Ann M. Roberts, The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy : a catalogue and critical essay, thèse de doctorat, University of Pennsylvania, 1982, p. 36-37, 100-101, 113 et 232, n° 16 et fig. 33

Didier Martens, "La "Madone au trône arqué" et la peinture brugeoise de la fin du Moyen Âge", Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 1993, n° 35, p. 140, 141, fig. 13, 142, 168, 173

Mark Rudolf Vrij, « Een Madonna van de Meester van de Lucia-Legende », Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten te Antwerpen, 1995, p. 19, note 20

Didier Martens, "Nouvelles recherches sur la Madone au trône arqué attribué à Dieric Bouts", Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, 1998, n° 40, p. 58-59, fig. 13, 64

Sacha Zdanov, "Assimilation et interprétation du style de Dirk Bouts dans l'œuvre du Maître de la Légende de sainte Lucie", Annales d'Histoire de l'Art et d'Archéologie, 34, 2012, p. 40, note 43

A painter from the city of Bruges, the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy takes his name from the painting depicting the legend of Saint Lucy in the Church of Saint James, also in Bruges. An important representative of the city’s artistic landscape, between twenty-five and thirty-five works are currently attributed to him. Since Friedländer's publication, several art historians have sought to identify the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, although no attribution has yet been accepted due to a lack of archival sources. Some have suggested the painter Jan Fabiaen (Bethune, before 1469 – 1520 Bruges)¹. Albert Janssens² sought to attribute the work to the painter Frans van den Pitte, who was active in Bruges between around 1475 and 1507. Finally, Ann Roberts in her thesis submitted the name of Jean I de Hervy, who was active in Bruges between 1472 and 1508. Our painting was included in Friedländer's catalogue as early as 1928, and Ann Roberts confirmed the attribution in her 1982 thesis, which emphasised the workshop's involvement in its production. Many of the paintings by the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy show the town of Bruges in the background, making it possible to identify with certainty the centre of this master's activity. The city is depicted in the distance in the Lamentation Triptych in Minneapolis, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, in The Legend of Saint Lucy in the Church of Saint James in Bruges, in The Virgin and Child (Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown) and in the Altarpiece of Saint Nicholas (Bruges, Groeningenmuseum). In our painting, we can see the spire of the Notre-Dame church, as well as the belfry above the town's covered market and the Adornes estate, which includes the Jerusalem chapel. The repeated representation of the belfry not only adds documentary interest to the work of this artist - who sometimes allowed himself the addition of fanciful buildings - but also makes it possible to place the master's activity around the years 1475 and 1502. Nicole Verhaegen has proposed a chronology of the master's works based on a study of representations of the belfry, at various stages of construction, between 1483 and 1501 (fig. 1). In our panel, the upper part of the belfry has not yet been completed, nor has the roof. Nicole Verhaegen therefore suggests that our work dates from 1493-1499, and compares it to the work in Minneapolis (Minneapolis Institute of Art, n°35.7.87). As Ann M. Roberts points out in her thesis, in addition to the description of the town, which is a recurring motif in the master's work, the landscape formed by a blue horizon and strips of wooded vegetation bordered by roads are also characteristic elements of the painter's work.

Beyond the treatment of the landscape, his use of similar, stylized faces and the often posed attitudes of the figures, which give the works a great solemnity, also make it easy to envisage the style of this Bruges master and to include our painting in the corpus of the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy. The model of the Christ Child with slender limbs can also be seen in the triptych in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. no.: M.69.54a-c), which is comparable to our painting in many ways (fig. 2). The decorative elements of the crystal throne, such as the columns in the lower section and the pear-shaped ornaments on the armrests, are visible in both works. In addition, the ample folds of the Virgin's red dress, which rises to reveal a brown cloth, are depicted in the same way in both paintings. The jewelled crown worn by Saint Lucy in the work narrating the episodes in the life of the saint in the church of Saint-Jacques in Bruges is reminiscent of the diadems worn by angels playing music. In her thesis, Ann Roberts identified two versions made after our painting in a private collection, which provides us with information about the reception of this work³. Various influences left their mark on the work of the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy. He continued the legacy of his predecessor Rogier van der Weyden, and of his contemporary and probable rival from Bruges, Hans Memling (c. 1435/1440-1494). To represent the Virgin and the Christ Child, the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy drew inspiration from the physiognomic types developed by van der Weyden, as seen in the Virgin and Child in the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. no. 1933.1052). This is particularly true of the Infant Jesus' rounded belly and long limbs, which he seems to have borrowed from the Brussels artist. Hans Memling's work also played a role in the development of certain iconographic types and in the careful rendering of backgrounds using a cooler palette. Historiography has also shown that our painter drew inspiration for our panel from a painting by Dirk Bouts (1420-1475) in the Royal Chapel of the Granada Cathedral. The Virgin and Child as well as the throne are fairly faithful borrowings from this work. The Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy must also have been inspired by the two little angels on either side of the throne, one of whom is also holding out a red carnation. The use of the work of Dirk Bouts is not unique in the corpus of the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy, as he also drew inspiration from a painting in Bouts' studio (Musée du Louvre) to paint a Pietà kept at the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. Along with Hans Memling and the Master of the Legend of Saint Ursula, the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy was one of the most successful painters of the late fifteenth century in Bruges. In addition to commissions for Bruges patrons such as Donaas de Moor and Adrienne De Vos, he produced several works for foreign merchants, including an altarpiece for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, an association of unmarried merchants in Tallinn (in present-day Estonia), and a painting of Saint Catherine for a merchant in Pisa. It is therefore likely that he ran a thriving workshop catering to the demands of an international clientele based in Italy, Spain and the Hanseatic region. Our important painting would have formed the central part of a triptych with wings that are now lost, one panel of which would have depicted a donor, perhaps a member of the local nobility, accompanied by his patron saint. In more recent times, the work was owned by major collectors, Arthur Sachs in New York and then Baron Joseph van der Elst, who took great care of it, judging by its excellent state of conservation.

1.     Pierre-Gilles Girault, ‘Cartonniers de tapisseries à Bruges et Paris vers 1500: Jan Fabiaen et Gauthier de Campes’, Studies in Western Tapestry, 2005 (online)

2.     Albert Janssens, « De Meesters van de Lucia - en de Ursulalegende. Een poging tot identificatie” Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis 141, n^o 3-4 (2004), p. 278-331. See Sasha Zdanov, « Quelle identité pour le maître de la Légende de sainte Lucie ? Révision des hypothèses et proposition d’identification », Koregos, 76, 2012 (online).

3.     Ann M. Roberts, op. cit., cat. 16a and cat. 16b.

We would like to thank Peter van den Brink for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work, having examined it in person on 2 July 2024