Circle Of Cornelis Van Cleve, Antwerp School 16th Century

The virgin installed in an interior near a window, holds the baby Jesus in her arms. The child dressed in a large pink tunic and a transparent white blouse squeezes his cheek against that of his mother in an attitude full of tenderness. With a gesture filled with sweetness he caresses his mother's chin with his left hand and with his right hand grasps the edge of the transparent veil that covers Mary's head. The virgin is dressed in a dress and a vermilion red coat, the color that dominates in the painting. Eyes down, she is focused on reading the open bible with illuminated pages posed on a prie-dieu. The brown hair enhanced with golden locks cleared on the forehead fell on his shoulders.
The window opens onto a landscape showing a church in the middle of the green hills.
Our delicately painted work seduces us with its atmosphere of softness and tranquility.

Antwerp School of the XVIth century,
oil on oak panel,
dimensions: h. 36.5 cm, l. 25.5 cm
Beautiful and large ebonized wood frame.
Dimensions with frame: h. 70.5 cm, l. 60.5 cm

Cornelis Van Cleve (1520 -?)
Antwerp painter, son of painter Joos Van Cleve, specializing in religious paintings, influenced by Italian painters such as Raphael, Andrea del Sarto and Leonard de Vinci, he enjoyed a very good reputation and great productivity before sinking into madness in the 1560s.
A Virgin and Child by Cornelis van Cleve, kept in the Prado Museum, displays the same position cheek to cheek and the child caressing the chin. We also find this attitude in a work by Cornelis van Cleve exhibited at the Groeningemuseum museum in Bruges.