Lot 61 Dα

This piece is painted after a work by Rubens currently kept in the Gemäldegalerie Berlin, but which once belonged to the picture gallery of Sanssouci. In this depiction of the Virgin, Rubens in turn drew inspiration from a Virgin and Child (private collection, Brussels) by Barent van Orley (1495 - 1542). However, he replaced van Orley's interior with a view of a forest clearing. Like in the precursor, Mary is here shown standing behind a balustrade hung with an Oriental rug and turning the pages of a manuscript, a motif also used in Orley's work.
The artist of the present painting adhered particularly strictly to Ruben's version when depicting the landscape in the background of this work, but has varied the still life in the lower right corner by replacing Ruben's composition of fruit with flowers in a glass vase.
Like in the Berlin work, for which Rubens collaborated with Jan Brueghel the Elder (for the landscape and flowers) and Frans Snyders (for the fruit), this painting is also thought to have been a collaborative work between two artists. Pieter van Avont (1600 - 1652) has been considered as the author of the Madonna and Christ Child figures.