From Patinir’s Workshop to the Monastery of Pedralbes. A Virgin and Child in a Landscape

Abstract

Among the paintings of netherlandish origin imported into Catalonia during the first half of the 16th century, preserved at the Monastery of Pedralbes, there is a small panel featuring the Madonna and Child in a landscape which is attributed here to Patinir’s workshop, not excluding the possibility of some autograph intervention by the master. Whatever the case, this article sets out to situate the piece both in the context of its production and in that of its reception, that is, the community of nuns of Saint Claire of Pedralbes. What is interesting about this apparently modest work is the fact that it combines a set of ingredients typical of Patinir in a composition that is otherwise atypical as regards his known output as a whole, above all in terms of the relationship between the figure and the landscape, although also of its presumed iconographic simplicity. The final section of the article examines the piece in relation to the ever-controversial issue –which still remains to be definitively resolved– of the authorship of the figures in the works of Patinir.

Keywords

• Joachim Patinir
• 16th Century Netherlandish Painting
• landscape painting
• The Virgin suckling the Child
• The Rest during the Flight into Egypt
• Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes