Christ Appearing to the Virgin

c. 1475

A woman wearing a cobalt-blue robe and a white veil sits with her hands raised, palms out, as she looks toward a slender, bearded man who stands to our left in this vertical painting. Both have light skin and delicate features, and they sit in a room with stone walls and arched windows. There are faint circles under the woman’s light brown eyes. She has a long slender nose, and her pink lips are pursed. One knee is bent, and she is low to the ground, suggesting she sits on a stool. A book lies open on a wooden stand in front of her to our right, below her left elbow. The ruffled edges of her multi-layered, white veil sweep over her forehead and down to her shoulders. Her loose, long-sleeved blue garment is edged with gold and falls in angular folds to pool at her feet. She holds her long-fingered, slender hands up at her chest, palms facing the man to our left. He stands with his body angled toward her as he looks down, his head tipped slightly forward. His brown hair falls over his shoulders. His voluminous, gold-edged, red cloak is fastened at his throat with a gold, jeweled brooch, and it drapes over his shoulders and around his lower torso, leaving his arms, chest, and a gash over his right ribs exposed. He holds a tall, gold staff topped with a jeweled cross in his left hand, to our right. A moss-green pennant flutters back from the base of the cross, as if lifted in a breeze. The man holds up his other hand so the palm faces the woman with the first two fingers raised. Round, puncture wounds with red blood mark the palm of that hand and tops of both bare feet. The floor is patterned with gray, brown, blue, and green tiles. The wall behind the woman has honey-brown paneling along the bottom half and the top half is slate gray. Gray columns are spaced along that wall, supporting a curving, vaulted ceiling. Two arched windows pierce the wall behind the woman, and both have stained glass designs within the curving tops. The window closer to us opens onto a narrow view of a landscape with a rose-pink arch over a bridge, and a path winding through green fields. An open door over the shoulder of the man, to our left, shows the stepped roofline of a pink building under a blue sky. The entire scene is framed with a flattened arch supported by gleaming columns of polished, veined brown stone, creating the impression that we look onto the people and room through the arch. The columns have leafy capitals and white bases. The tan-colored arch is carved with a row of stylized rosettes along the opening that spans the top of the painting.

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 39

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Andrew W. Mellon Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 163 × 93 cm (64 3/16 × 36 5/8 in.)
    framed: 182.88 × 115.57 × 11.43 cm (72 × 45 1/2 × 4 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1937.1.45

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Don José de Madrazo y Agudo, Madrid [d.1859], by 1856;[1] by inheritance to his son, Don Federigo de Madrazo y Kuntz [d. 1894], Madrid.[2] Marqués de Salamanca [1805-1866], Madrid;[3] (his sale, Paris, 3-6 June 1867, no. 155, as by Hugo van der Goes).[4] Don Pedro de Madrazo, Madrid, until 1909; (Durlacher, London), by 1909.[5] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York), September 1912. (Kleinberger, New York), May-June, 1914;[6] (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London and New York), June 1914; purchased 15 December 1936 by The A.W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, Pittsburgh;[7] gift 1937 to NGA.
[1] Catalogo de la Galeria de Cuadros Del Excmo. Sr. D. José de Madrazo (Madrid, 1856), 519.
[2] Unverified, but very likely; information from Duveen Brothers brochure in NGA curatorial files.
[3] Catalogo de la galeria de Cuadros de la posesion de Vista-Alegre, de propriedad del Excmo. Sr. Marqués de Salamanca (Madrid, 1865), no. 619 (copy in NGA curatorial files).
[4] The Getty Provenance Index names a Guadré as the buyer at the 1867 sale, and records that the sale was held at Pillet, Paris. It lists its source as "procés verbal (Arch. Paris D48E358)".
[5] Duveen Brothers brochure in NGA curatorial files. W.H. James Weale, "The Risen Saviour Appearing to His Mother: a masterpiece by Roger de la Pasture," Burlington Magazine 16 (December 1909), 159, cites the painting as being with Durlacher and mentions the previous owner as Pedro de Madrazo.
[6] Kleinberger archives, card no. 9561, department of European painting, Metropolitan Museum. John O. Hand (as per n. 3 above), 256, n. 5, acknowledges Lorne Campbell for bringing this information to his attention, and Mary Sprinson de Jesús for access to the files.
[7] The original Duveen Brothers invoice is in Gallery Archives, copy in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1927

  • Flemish and Belgian Art, 1300-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, no. 30, as Rogier van der Weyden.

1935

  • Cinq siècles d'art Bruxellois, Exposition Universelle, Brussels, 1935, no. 11, as Rogier van der Weyden.

2013

  • The Heritage of Rogier van der Weyden: Painting in Brussels 1450-1520, Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels, 2013, no. 21.1, repro.

Bibliography

1856

  • Catalogo de la Galeria de Cuadros del Excmo. Sr. D. José de Madrazo. Madrid, 1856: 126, no. 519.

1907

  • Duverger, J. "Stock." In Thieme-Becker. 37 vols. Leipzig, 1907-1950: 32(1938):69-70.

1909

  • Weale, W. H. James. "The Risen Saviour Appearing to His Mother: a masterpiece by Roger de la Pasture." The Burlington Magazine 16 (December 1909): 159-160, repro.

1912

  • Wauters, A. J. "Roger van der Weyden." The Burlington Magazine 22 (November 1912): 82.

1917

  • Mather, Frank Jr. "Christ Appearing to His Mother by Rogier de la Pasture." Art in America 5 (April, 1917): 149.

1924

  • Friedländer, Max J. Die altniederländische Malerei 14 vols. 1924-1937. Berlin, 1924: 2:105, no. 41. (English ed., 14 vols., 1967-1976. Leiden, 1967: 2:68, no. 41, pl. 64.)

1926

  • Hulin de Loo, Georges. "Stockt." In Biographie National de Belgique. 29 vols. Brussels, 1926/1927: 24:col. 73.

1927

  • Schneider, Hans. "Die Ausstellung flämischer und belgischer Kunst in London." Zeitschrift für bildende Kunst 61 (1927/1928): 40.

1928

  • Vaughan, Malcolm. "Roger van der Weyden in America." International Studio 90 (July, 1928): 42-43, repro. 41.

1930

  • Destrée, Jules. Roger de la Pasture van der Weyden. 2 vols. Paris and Brussels, 1930: 97-98, pl. 18.

1938

  • Schöne, Wolfgang. Dieric Bouts und seine Schule. Berlin and Leipzig, 1938: 64, no. 15.

1941

  • Duveen Brothers. Duveen Pictures in Public Collections of America. New York, 1941: no. 173, as Christ Appearing to His Mother by Rogier van der Weyden.

  • Preliminary Catalogue of Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1941: 214, no. 45, as by Rogier van der Weyden.

  • De Tolnay, Charles. "Flemish Paintings in the National Gallery of Art." Magazine of Art 34 (April 1941): 185-186, fig. 14.

1942

  • Book of Illustrations. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1942: 240, repro. 42, as by Rogier van der Weyden.

1949

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Mellon Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1949 (reprinted 1953 and 1958): 54, repro., as by Rogier van der Weyden.

1951

  • Beenken, Hermann. Rogier van der Weyden. Munich, 1951: 100.

1953

  • Panofsky Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origins and Character. 2 vols. Cambridge, Mass., 1953: 1:463.

1957

  • Breckenridge, James. "`Et Prima Vidit': The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother." The Art Bulletin 39, no. 1 (March 1957): 24.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 139, as by Rogier van der Weyden.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 127, repro., as by Rogier van de Weyden.

1972

  • Davies, Martin. Rogier van der Weyden. London, 1972: 215.

1973

  • Campbell, Lorne. "Studies in Early Netherlandish Art." Review of The Ghent Altarpiece and the Art of Jan van Eyck by Lotte Brand Philip and Rogier van der Weyden by Martin Davies. Apollo 98, no. 137 (July, 1973): 64.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 376, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 125, fig. 120.

1981

  • Grosshans, Rainald. "Rogier van der Weyden. Der Marienaltar aus der Kartause Miraflores." Jahrbuch der königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen (Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen) 23 (1981): 77.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 125, no. 114, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 436, repro.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1986: 254-257, repro. 255.

2014

  • Steyaert, Griet, and Mark S. Tucker. "The Philadelphia Crucifixion, Dijon Annunciation, and Washington Apparition: A carved altarpiece's painted wings from the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden." Boletín del Museo del Prado 32, no. 50 (2014): 50-69, fig. 3, part of figs. 4, 5, 8.

Wikidata ID

Q20174141

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