J. Normand, Paris;
His sale, Paris, Drouot, 7 March1923, lot 15 (as Rhenish School);
Becker collection, Dortmund, by 1967;
With Hans M. Cramer, The Hague, 1979;
Private collection, Germany;
Bought by the late husband of the present owner before 1993.

Kassel, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, on loan (inv. L1134).

R. Fritz, Sammlung Becker, Dortmund 1967, (unpaginated), no. 37, reproduced in colour (as the Master of the Berlin Sketchbook);
M. Brieskorn, in E. Mai (ed.), Das Kabinett des Sammlers. Gemälde vom XV. bis XVIII. Jahrhundert, Cologne 1993, pp. 37-8, reproduced in colour (as the Master of the Berlin Sketchbook).

The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is on a fine oak panel, bevelled on all sides. The panel appears to have been stable over a long period, although in the perhaps long distant past there seems to have been a single, narrow, fairly brief vertical crack in the lower centre with slight old rubbing up the middle perhaps connected to this. There are small old retouchings in the tiled floor, in some central figures including the Christ Child and in the priest's drapery and his forehead, though the slightly more rubbed veiled figure in the garden, to an old retouching in the sky behind the fountain. There is certainly no trace of any movement today, and all the delicate detail of the paint is beautifully preserved on either side of the narrow central band of slight wear mentioned above. The group including the Virgin to the left of the priest is especially finely intact, with perfectly unworn brushwork and the unvarnished surface texture of an illuminated manuscript. This report was not done under laboratory conditions.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Before 1967, the late K.G. Boon, Director of the Rijksprentenkabinett, Amsterdam, attributed this picture to The Master of the Berlin Sketchbook, an anonymous painter thought to have been in the workshop of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen in Amsterdam between 1523 and 1526.¹  This master is named after a sketchbook in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett filled with drawings by the same very distinctive hand, many of which are studies and partial copies related to works by Oostsanen.²  Three panels which probably formed part of a small Marian triptych, have been attributed to the Berlin Sketchbook Master on grounds of style.³  Nothing secure is known about his activities as a painter however, and as both Daantje Meuwissen and Jane Carroll have kindly confirmed there is no good reason to attribute this panel to him.⁴ 

Both Dr. Meuwissen and Professor Carroll agree that this panel is likely to be by an artist in Oostsanen's workshop who assisted him on the Naples altarpiece of 1512, where the decoration of the pillars is similar but more elaborately done.  Dr. Meuwissen dates the present work a little later, to around 1515-18, comparing the facial types with those in Oostsanen's painted ceilings, such as the one in Alkmaar of circa 1518, and with those in his triptych of The Adoration of the Magi in Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, which is dated 1517.  Professor Carroll has suggested that the Virgin has an origin in Oostsanen's woodcuts, such as the Life of Mary series of 1507 (Holl. 83-9), and in particular The Presentation in the Temple o🐽f 1513 (Holl. 81), where the Virgin is similarly posed and placed in🔜 the composition (near an altar of similar construction; see fig. 1).

We are grateful to Dr. Daantje Meuwissen, who is preparing an exhibition on Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen to be held in the Municipal Museum in Alkmaar and the Amsterdam Historical Museum in 2013, and to Professor Jane Carroll, for their help in cataloguing this picture.  

1.  See Brieskorn, under Literature.
2.  See J. L. Carroll, The paintings of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (1472?-1533), dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1987, pp. 327-330.
3.  See Carroll, op. cit., pp. 329-332, nos. B1-4.
4.  By fax.