Joos van Cleve
(Cleve[?] c. 1485–1540/41 Antwerp)
The Madonna of the Cherries
c. 1525–30
oil on panel, with shaped top
71 x 51 cm (28 x 20 in.)
‘Joos’ best adaptations of Leonardo resulted in a fruitful combination of the figurative grace and harmony of Italian colouring, and the Dutch surface treatment and the richness of detail, which created a new hybrid form.’
Peter van den Brink (ed.), Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens, exh. cat., Aachen 2011, p. 131
Hover to zoom to maximum level or click to enlarge
Artwork details
The Madonna of the Cherries encapsulates Joos van Cleve’s blend of northern precision and the soft grace of Italian painting that earned him the epithet ‘Leonardo of the North’. Indeed, the compositional idea can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), whose design – now lost – was adopted by one of his Milanese followers, Giovanni Pietro Rizzi, better known as Giampietrino (active c. 1495–1553). It was Giampietrino’s specific rendering of the subject – known today in a painting formerly in the collection of Robert Edsel, Dallas – to which Joos had access, likely through a full-scale replica or cartoon. In his reinterpretation of the design, he preserved the tender arrangement of the Virgin and Christ Child, while at the same time transforming his Italian model by recasting it in the pictorial language of Flanders, his adopted home.
Joos replaced Giampietrino’s simple setting with a rich interior, decorating the back wall with an elaborate pilaster and dressing the low plinth with ornate panels embellished with acanthus motifs. He also modified the colours of the Virgin’s clothing, substituting Giampietrino’s orange tones with sumptuous yellows, and made changes to the fruit, removing some of the cherries in Giampietrino’s composition and introducing on the stone ledge in the foreground a slightly blemished apple, in reference to the Fall of Man. Perhaps the most striking alteration is the insertion of a far-reaching landscape beyond the open window. Painted in glorious detail, it includes a view of a ripened cornfield, which may allude to the Eucharist, with tiny figures of peasants and soldiers gathered beside it. This has also been read as an evocation of the Miracle of the Corn, a medieval legend, which recounts how during the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt they passed a farmer sowing grain and instructed him to tell any pursuers that they had passed during planting. Overnight, the seeds grew miraculously into a mature crop, ready for harvest, and when the next day King Herod’s soldiers arrived and saw the field, they believed the farmer’s truthful answer and convinced themselves that the family had passed long before, prompting them to abandon the chase.
While twentieth-century scholarship – including Max J. Friedländer (1972) and John Oliver Hand (2004) – traditionally categorised the present panel as a workshop replica, a more recent conservation campaign and subsequent technical examinations have prompted a significant reassessment of its authorship. Following its cleaning, the panel was included in Peter van den Brink’s landmark monographic exhibition Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens (Aachen, 2011) and published by Micha Leeflang (2015) as a fully autograph work. Infrared examination revealed that Joos used a cartoon tracing to transfer the figures from his Italian model. Leeflang has identified this painting and the sister version at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, as ‘the two best specimens by Joos van Cleve himself’, citing their painterly refinement, detail, colouring and high degree of finish.
The Earls of Chesterfield, Chesterfield House, London, where recorded in 1815; likely acquired in the mid-eighteenth century by Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773); thence by inheritance to his kinsman and godson Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl (1755–1815); and by descent to his son George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield (1805–1866);
Robert Napier (1791–1876), Shandon, Dumfriesshire, by 1857;
Sold posthumously (‘The Shandon Collection’), Christie’s, London, 11 April 1877 ff., 14 April (4th day), lot 649 (as Bernard van Orley), for £54, 12s., to Newman;
Sir Francis Cook, Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1817–1901), Doughty House, Richmond, and by descent to his son
Sir Frederick Cook, 2nd Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1844–1920), Doughty House, and by descent to his son
Sir Herbert Francis Cook, 3rd Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1868–1939), Doughty House, and by descent to his son
Sir Francis Cook, 4th Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1907–1978), Doughty House, until 1945 and elsewhere in England;
By whose Trustees sold (‘The Property of the Trustees of the Cook Collection’), London, Christie’s, 25 November 1966, lot 61, for £1,966;
Where acquired by Charles Robertson (d. 1983) and his wife Barbara (d. 2002), Combe Hay Manor, Somerset;
Their sale, London, Sotheby’s, 16 December 2002, lot 27 (as Joos van Cleve and workshop), for £160,650, to Colnaghi;
With Colnaghi, London;
From whom acquired by Hester Diamond, New York, by 2004;
Private collection, 2017;
The Klesch Collection.
Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 467 (as Mabuse. More probably by Van Orley, lent by Robert Napier, Esq.);
London, The New Gallery, Exhibition of Pictures by Masters of the Flemish and British Schools including a selection from the works of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1899–1900, no. 6 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse, lent by Sir Francis Cook, Bt);
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Pictures, Decorative Furniture and other Works of Art, Winter Exhibition, 1912, no. 45 (as traditionally ascribed to Mabuse, lent by Sir Frederick Cook, Bt);
The Arts Exhibition Bureau Touring Exhibition, Norwich, Sheffield, Leicester, Blackpool, Manchester, Southampton and Brighton, Loan Exhibition of the Cook Collection (Group I) of Primitive and Early Renaissance Paintings (1350–1550), August 1946 – July 1947, no. 28 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse);
Southampton, Southampton Art Gallery, on loan, 1951–58;
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, on loan 1964–66;
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, Between Renaissance and Baroque. European Art 1520–1600, 10 March – 6 April 1965, no. 65 (as attributed to Joos van Cleve, lent by Sir Francis Cook, Bt and the Trustees of the Cook Collection);
Saint Louis, City Art Gallery of Saint Louis, on loan, 1973;
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan, 18 September – 6 December 2006;
Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Joos van Cleve, Leonardo des Nordens, 17 March – 26 June 2011, no. 35.
Inventory of Chesterfield House, 1815 (Public Record Office, London, C112/186), as hanging in the Red Room or Breakfast Room, no. 43 ‘The Virgin and Child by L Da Vinci’, in Russell 1988;
Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, exh. cat., Manchester 1857, p. 42, no. 467 (as Mabuse. More probably by Van Orley);
J.C. Robinson, Catalogue of the Works of Art forming the collection of Robert Napier, London 1865, pp. 19–20, no. 355 (as Bernard van Orley);
Exhibition of Pictures by Masters of the Flemish and British Schools including a Selection from the Works of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, exh. cat., The New Gallery, London 1899, p. 2, no. 6 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse);
Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, London 1903, p. 10, no. 65 and London 1907, no. 50 (as Mabuse, based on a design of Leonardo da Vinci; hanging in the First, or Old Gallery);
Catalogue of a Collection of Pictures, Decorative Furniture and other Works of Art, Winter Exhibition, exh. cat., The Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 1912, p. 15, no. 45 (as traditionally ascribed to Mabuse);
C. Phillips, ‘Art Notes’, The Daily Telegraph, 7 December 1912, p. 14;
M.W. Brockwell, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, and Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt, Visconde de Monserrate, H. Cook (ed.), vol. III, London 1915, p. 81, no. 460, repr. (as early Flemish School, sixteenth century);
L. Baldass, Joos van Cleve der Meister des Todes Mariä, Vienna 1925, pp. 32–33, under no. 94 (as one of numerous other repetitions);
M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, Joos van Cleve, Jan Provost, Joachim Patenier, vol. IX, Berlin 1931, pp. 43 and 137, no. 63h;
M.W. Brockwell, Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart, London 1932, p. 16, no. 460 (50) (as Flemish School, early XVI century; hanging in the First Gallery);
Between Renaissance and Baroque. European Art 1520–1600, exh. cat., City of Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester 1965, p. 26, no. 65 (as attributed to Joos van Cleve);
G. Marlier, ‘Joos van Cleve – Fontainebleau and Italy’, The Connoisseur, May 1967, pp. 25–27, fig. 4;
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Joos van Cleve, Jan Provost, Joachim Patenier, vol. IX, part I, Leiden 1972, p. 63, no. 63h, (as [formerly in the] Cook collection, Richmond. Present location unknown; and as a replica of Van Cleve’s composition painted in the artist’s studio or by one of his followers);
F. Russell, ‘Canaletto and Joli at Chesterfield House’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 130, no. 1025, August 1988, p. 630;
L. Collobi Ragghianti, ‘Originali, repliche, copie e derivazioni’, Critica d’arte, LIV, April–June 1989, pp. 93–96, repr. p. 94, fig. 5;
J.O. Hand, Joos van Cleve: The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, pp. 95, 186, no. 112.2, repr. pp. 95 and 98 (detail), fig. 100 (as workshop, not before c. 1525);
M. Leeflang, ‘Joos van Cleve and his Assistants. Questions of Identity by ‘Faults or Virtues’ (Fehler oder Tugenden)?’, in N. Peeters (ed.), Invisible hands? The Role and Status of the Painter’s Journeyman in the Low Countries c. 1450 – c. 1650, Leuven 2007, p. 79 (as ‘most likely painted for the greater part by Joos van Cleve himself’);
M. Leeflang, ‘Uytnemende Schilder van Antwerpen’: Joos van Cleve: atelier, productie en werkmethoden, PhD Diss., Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 2007, pp. 149–51, 255–56, no. 80 (Joos van Cleve and workshop);
D. Micucci, ‘The Top Collections from 250 Collectors’, Art & Antiques, March 2008, p. 105, repr.;
R.R. Brettell and C.D. Dickerson III, From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern, New Haven 2009, p. 114, fig. 2 (as workshop of Joos van Cleve);
D. Ewing in Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens, P. van den Brink (ed.), exh. cat., Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen 2011, pp. 117, fig. 91 and 176, no. 35;
L. Fagnart, ‘La Vierge aux cerises: une invention léonardesque dans la peinture anversoise de la première moitié du XVIe siècle’, in R. Dekoninck (ed.), Relations artistiques entre Italie et anciens Pays-Bas (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Bilans et perspectives, Turnhout 2012, pp. 44 and 45, fig. 2 (as Joos van Cleve and workshop, c. 1525);
M. Leeflang, Joos van Cleve: A Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Artist and His Workshop, Turnhout 2015, pp. 75–76, repr. p. 77, fig. 2.63 (as Joos van Cleve, ‘considered to be [one of the two] best specimens by Joos van Cleve himself’, c. 1525–30);
M. Pietrogiovanna, ‘Not Just Copies but Variations, Suggestions, Interpretations and Critical Reception: Joos van Cleve and the Lost Madonna of the Cherries by Leonardo da Vinci’, in M. Bellawitis (ed.), Making Copies in European Art 1400–1600: Shifting Tastes, Modes of Transmission, and Changing Contexts, Leiden 2018, pp. 287–88, fig. 8.1, 290 and 292–95 (as Joos van Cleve).
If you would like to use this image for educational purposes, please contact us.
Hover to zoom to maximum level or click to enlarge
Joos van Cleve
(Cleve[?] c. 1485–1540/41 Antwerp)
The Madonna of the Cherries
c. 1525–30
oil on panel, with shaped top
71 x 51 cm (28 x 20 in.)
‘Joos’ best adaptations of Leonardo resulted in a fruitful combination of the figurative grace and harmony of Italian colouring, and the Dutch surface treatment and the richness of detail, which created a new hybrid form.’
Peter van den Brink (ed.), Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens, exh. cat., Aachen 2011, p. 131
Artwork details
The Madonna of the Cherries encapsulates Joos van Cleve’s blend of northern precision and the soft grace of Italian painting that earned him the epithet ‘Leonardo of the North’. Indeed, the compositional idea can be traced back to Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), whose design – now lost – was adopted by one of his Milanese followers, Giovanni Pietro Rizzi, better known as Giampietrino (active c. 1495–1553). It was Giampietrino’s specific rendering of the subject – known today in a painting formerly in the collection of Robert Edsel, Dallas – to which Joos had access, likely through a full-scale replica or cartoon. In his reinterpretation of the design, he preserved the tender arrangement of the Virgin and Christ Child, while at the same time transforming his Italian model by recasting it in the pictorial language of Flanders, his adopted home.
Joos replaced Giampietrino’s simple setting with a rich interior, decorating the back wall with an elaborate pilaster and dressing the low plinth with ornate panels embellished with acanthus motifs. He also modified the colours of the Virgin’s clothing, substituting Giampietrino’s orange tones with sumptuous yellows, and made changes to the fruit, removing some of the cherries in Giampietrino’s composition and introducing on the stone ledge in the foreground a slightly blemished apple, in reference to the Fall of Man. Perhaps the most striking alteration is the insertion of a far-reaching landscape beyond the open window. Painted in glorious detail, it includes a view of a ripened cornfield, which may allude to the Eucharist, with tiny figures of peasants and soldiers gathered beside it. This has also been read as an evocation of the Miracle of the Corn, a medieval legend, which recounts how during the Holy Family’s Flight into Egypt they passed a farmer sowing grain and instructed him to tell any pursuers that they had passed during planting. Overnight, the seeds grew miraculously into a mature crop, ready for harvest, and when the next day King Herod’s soldiers arrived and saw the field, they believed the farmer’s truthful answer and convinced themselves that the family had passed long before, prompting them to abandon the chase.
While twentieth-century scholarship – including Max J. Friedländer (1972) and John Oliver Hand (2004) – traditionally categorised the present panel as a workshop replica, a more recent conservation campaign and subsequent technical examinations have prompted a significant reassessment of its authorship. Following its cleaning, the panel was included in Peter van den Brink’s landmark monographic exhibition Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens (Aachen, 2011) and published by Micha Leeflang (2015) as a fully autograph work. Infrared examination revealed that Joos used a cartoon tracing to transfer the figures from his Italian model. Leeflang has identified this painting and the sister version at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, as ‘the two best specimens by Joos van Cleve himself’, citing their painterly refinement, detail, colouring and high degree of finish.
The Earls of Chesterfield, Chesterfield House, London, where recorded in 1815; likely acquired in the mid-eighteenth century by Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773); thence by inheritance to his kinsman and godson Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl (1755–1815); and by descent to his son George Stanhope, 6th Earl of Chesterfield (1805–1866);
Robert Napier (1791–1876), Shandon, Dumfriesshire, by 1857;
Sold posthumously (‘The Shandon Collection’), Christie’s, London, 11 April 1877 ff., 14 April (4th day), lot 649 (as Bernard van Orley), for £54, 12s., to Newman;
Sir Francis Cook, Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1817–1901), Doughty House, Richmond, and by descent to his son
Sir Frederick Cook, 2nd Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1844–1920), Doughty House, and by descent to his son
Sir Herbert Francis Cook, 3rd Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1868–1939), Doughty House, and by descent to his son
Sir Francis Cook, 4th Bt, Visconde de Monserrate (1907–1978), Doughty House, until 1945 and elsewhere in England;
By whose Trustees sold (‘The Property of the Trustees of the Cook Collection’), London, Christie’s, 25 November 1966, lot 61, for £1,966;
Where acquired by Charles Robertson (d. 1983) and his wife Barbara (d. 2002), Combe Hay Manor, Somerset;
Their sale, London, Sotheby’s, 16 December 2002, lot 27 (as Joos van Cleve and workshop), for £160,650, to Colnaghi;
With Colnaghi, London;
From whom acquired by Hester Diamond, New York, by 2004;
Private collection, 2017;
The Klesch Collection.
Manchester, Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, 1857, no. 467 (as Mabuse. More probably by Van Orley, lent by Robert Napier, Esq.);
London, The New Gallery, Exhibition of Pictures by Masters of the Flemish and British Schools including a selection from the works of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, 1899–1900, no. 6 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse, lent by Sir Francis Cook, Bt);
London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Pictures, Decorative Furniture and other Works of Art, Winter Exhibition, 1912, no. 45 (as traditionally ascribed to Mabuse, lent by Sir Frederick Cook, Bt);
The Arts Exhibition Bureau Touring Exhibition, Norwich, Sheffield, Leicester, Blackpool, Manchester, Southampton and Brighton, Loan Exhibition of the Cook Collection (Group I) of Primitive and Early Renaissance Paintings (1350–1550), August 1946 – July 1947, no. 28 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse);
Southampton, Southampton Art Gallery, on loan, 1951–58;
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, on loan 1964–66;
Manchester, Manchester City Art Gallery, Between Renaissance and Baroque. European Art 1520–1600, 10 March – 6 April 1965, no. 65 (as attributed to Joos van Cleve, lent by Sir Francis Cook, Bt and the Trustees of the Cook Collection);
Saint Louis, City Art Gallery of Saint Louis, on loan, 1973;
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on loan, 18 September – 6 December 2006;
Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Joos van Cleve, Leonardo des Nordens, 17 March – 26 June 2011, no. 35.
Inventory of Chesterfield House, 1815 (Public Record Office, London, C112/186), as hanging in the Red Room or Breakfast Room, no. 43 ‘The Virgin and Child by L Da Vinci’, in Russell 1988;
Catalogue of the Art Treasures of the United Kingdom, exh. cat., Manchester 1857, p. 42, no. 467 (as Mabuse. More probably by Van Orley);
J.C. Robinson, Catalogue of the Works of Art forming the collection of Robert Napier, London 1865, pp. 19–20, no. 355 (as Bernard van Orley);
Exhibition of Pictures by Masters of the Flemish and British Schools including a Selection from the Works of Sir Peter Paul Rubens, exh. cat., The New Gallery, London 1899, p. 2, no. 6 (as Jan Gossaert, called Mabuse);
Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, London 1903, p. 10, no. 65 and London 1907, no. 50 (as Mabuse, based on a design of Leonardo da Vinci; hanging in the First, or Old Gallery);
Catalogue of a Collection of Pictures, Decorative Furniture and other Works of Art, Winter Exhibition, exh. cat., The Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 1912, p. 15, no. 45 (as traditionally ascribed to Mabuse);
C. Phillips, ‘Art Notes’, The Daily Telegraph, 7 December 1912, p. 14;
M.W. Brockwell, A Catalogue of the Paintings at Doughty House, Richmond, and Elsewhere in the Collection of Sir Frederick Cook, Bt, Visconde de Monserrate, H. Cook (ed.), vol. III, London 1915, p. 81, no. 460, repr. (as early Flemish School, sixteenth century);
L. Baldass, Joos van Cleve der Meister des Todes Mariä, Vienna 1925, pp. 32–33, under no. 94 (as one of numerous other repetitions);
M.J. Friedländer, Die Altniederländische Malerei, Joos van Cleve, Jan Provost, Joachim Patenier, vol. IX, Berlin 1931, pp. 43 and 137, no. 63h;
M.W. Brockwell, Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures at Doughty House, Richmond, Surrey, in the Collection of Sir Herbert Cook, Bart, London 1932, p. 16, no. 460 (50) (as Flemish School, early XVI century; hanging in the First Gallery);
Between Renaissance and Baroque. European Art 1520–1600, exh. cat., City of Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester 1965, p. 26, no. 65 (as attributed to Joos van Cleve);
G. Marlier, ‘Joos van Cleve – Fontainebleau and Italy’, The Connoisseur, May 1967, pp. 25–27, fig. 4;
M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, Joos van Cleve, Jan Provost, Joachim Patenier, vol. IX, part I, Leiden 1972, p. 63, no. 63h, (as [formerly in the] Cook collection, Richmond. Present location unknown; and as a replica of Van Cleve’s composition painted in the artist’s studio or by one of his followers);
F. Russell, ‘Canaletto and Joli at Chesterfield House’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 130, no. 1025, August 1988, p. 630;
L. Collobi Ragghianti, ‘Originali, repliche, copie e derivazioni’, Critica d’arte, LIV, April–June 1989, pp. 93–96, repr. p. 94, fig. 5;
J.O. Hand, Joos van Cleve: The Complete Paintings, New Haven and London 2004, pp. 95, 186, no. 112.2, repr. pp. 95 and 98 (detail), fig. 100 (as workshop, not before c. 1525);
M. Leeflang, ‘Joos van Cleve and his Assistants. Questions of Identity by ‘Faults or Virtues’ (Fehler oder Tugenden)?’, in N. Peeters (ed.), Invisible hands? The Role and Status of the Painter’s Journeyman in the Low Countries c. 1450 – c. 1650, Leuven 2007, p. 79 (as ‘most likely painted for the greater part by Joos van Cleve himself’);
M. Leeflang, ‘Uytnemende Schilder van Antwerpen’: Joos van Cleve: atelier, productie en werkmethoden, PhD Diss., Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 2007, pp. 149–51, 255–56, no. 80 (Joos van Cleve and workshop);
D. Micucci, ‘The Top Collections from 250 Collectors’, Art & Antiques, March 2008, p. 105, repr.;
R.R. Brettell and C.D. Dickerson III, From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern, New Haven 2009, p. 114, fig. 2 (as workshop of Joos van Cleve);
D. Ewing in Joos van Cleve: Leonardo des Nordens, P. van den Brink (ed.), exh. cat., Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen 2011, pp. 117, fig. 91 and 176, no. 35;
L. Fagnart, ‘La Vierge aux cerises: une invention léonardesque dans la peinture anversoise de la première moitié du XVIe siècle’, in R. Dekoninck (ed.), Relations artistiques entre Italie et anciens Pays-Bas (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles). Bilans et perspectives, Turnhout 2012, pp. 44 and 45, fig. 2 (as Joos van Cleve and workshop, c. 1525);
M. Leeflang, Joos van Cleve: A Sixteenth-Century Antwerp Artist and His Workshop, Turnhout 2015, pp. 75–76, repr. p. 77, fig. 2.63 (as Joos van Cleve, ‘considered to be [one of the two] best specimens by Joos van Cleve himself’, c. 1525–30);
M. Pietrogiovanna, ‘Not Just Copies but Variations, Suggestions, Interpretations and Critical Reception: Joos van Cleve and the Lost Madonna of the Cherries by Leonardo da Vinci’, in M. Bellawitis (ed.), Making Copies in European Art 1400–1600: Shifting Tastes, Modes of Transmission, and Changing Contexts, Leiden 2018, pp. 287–88, fig. 8.1, 290 and 292–95 (as Joos van Cleve).
If you would like to use this image for educational purposes, please contact us.