Paul Oppenheimer, Neumünster;
With P. de Boer, Amsterdam;
Anholt collection, Canada;
With Harry Sperling, New York;
Purchased from the above by Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Carter, Los Angeles;
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. Carter to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1972 (💦acc. no. M.72.ꦰ82).

Los Angeles County Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. XIX, no. 2, 1973, p. 37;
M.J. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting. vAnthonis Mor and his contemporaries, vol. XIII, New York/ Washington 1975, p. 80, no. 74, reproduced plate 38 (as Herri Met de Bles);
S. Schaefer et al, European Painting and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1987, p. 18, reproduced (as Herri Met de Bles);

Panel is flat and composed of one piece of wood, which is beveled on the top side. Overall the condition is quite good. A few small scattered retouches are present in the sky but otherwise there are no significant areas of repair. When unframed, there is a small chip in the wood present in the upper right corner. May be hung as is. In a carved wooden frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Although long attributed to Herri Met de Bles this expansive landscape, detailing Christ's route to Emmaus, would appear to have been executed by his close follower, the so-called Master of the Lille Sermon. Termed as such by Giorgio Faggin in 1968¹ after his  Sermon of St. John in Lille,² this master, although anonymous, is the only distinct personality to emerge from Bles' vast following and indeed he was probably a member of the Bles workshop. Several aspects of the present work recall the few works linked with the Master; in particular, the distinctive cloud formations mirror those in both the Sermon of St. John and Moses before the burning bush in Naples, Museo di Capodimonte,³ while the linear style of the architecture, which is so reminiscent of Lucas Gassel, recalls that of both the Sermon and Journey to Emmaus in Liège, Musée d'art Religieux et d'Art Mosan.⁴ The fi♛gures too, seemingly inspired by those of Pieter Bruegel, appear to be by the same hand as those in the Liège panel. The greater spatial coherence and relatively undramatic landscape, in contrast to the sharply vertical mountains and cliff faces that characterise Bles' own work, also b🍷etray the influence of some of Bruegel's early landscapes.

Although no other versions of the present composition by Bles or his workshop are known, there are several which follow the Journey to Emmaus theme and which, in the very broadest sense, might be said to echo the composition of this work; see, for example, the paintings of the same subject in the Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.⁵ There is however a related pen drawing in a sketchbook kept in Berlin which almost exactly replicates the fortified town in the left middle-distance (fig. 1).⁶ This sketchbook includes drawings by at least six different hands which Held considered to have been executed in Antwerp in the 1530s. Its relevance here can only hypothesised given that the drawing itself is almost certainly not by either the Master of the Lille Sermon or Bles himself.

We are grateful to Dr. Walter S. Gibson for tentatively endorsing our attribution to the Master of the𝄹 Lille Sermon on the basis of photographs.

1. G. Faggin, La pittura ad Anversa nel cinquecento, Florence 1968, p. 41, n. 34.
2. W.S. Gibson, Mirror of the Earth. The World Landscape in sixteenth-Century Flemish Painting, Princeton 1989, reproduced fig. 2.60.
3. Ibid., reproduced fig. 2.62.
4. Ibid., reproduced fig. 2.61.
5. The former: Ibid, reproduced fig. 2.47. 
6. Kupferstiℱchkabinett Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Kat./Inv.-Nr.🍸 79 C 2.