Virgin and Child

Jan Gossaert, a painter and designer of wood‑cuts and engravings, was born in Maubeuge, the city in Flanders from which he derived his better known name, Mabuse. Early in the sixteenth century, Gossaert traveled to Italy with his patron, Philip of Burgundy. Following his exposure to the classically proportioned figures and full forms of Italian Renaissance painting, he developed a style that combined Italianate elements with Flemish detail and precise delineation.

This Madonna and Child is one in a series of such images produced by Gossaert and his workshop. The models were probably the wife and son of another one of Gossaert's Burgundian patrons. The elegantly dressed half‑length Madonna holds a robust and rosy‑cheeked Christ Child; they exist in a compacted space which seems to force them to the frontal plane of the picture. Their realistic appearance is based upon the artist's contrasts of light and dark giving the forms a more animated and three-dimensional appearance, yet Gossaert's painting also continues to display the meticulous attention to detail which had characterized Netherlandish art for many generations.