Virgin and Child in a Niche by a Netherlandish Painter in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 2008

Artist: Netherlandish Painter, about 1500

Title: Virgin and Child in a Niche

Date: ca. 1500

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 23 x 12 1/8 in. (58.4 x 30.8 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889

Accession Number: 89.15.24

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings: Inscribed: (on canopy) DOMVS.dEI.EST.ET.PORTA.C[O]ELI ([This is none other than] the house of God and [this is] the gate of heaven [Genesis 28:17].); (on step) IPSA EST [MVLIER] QVAM PR[A]EPARAVIT DOM[INV]S FILIO D[OMI]NI MEI (Let the same be [the woman] whom the Lord hath appointed out for my master's son [Genesis 24:44].)

Gallery Label: The source for the figures of the Virgin and Child is Jan van Eyck's "Virgin and Child at the Fountain" (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp), which also inspired several other works, including Gerard David's "Virgin and Child with Four Angels," which hangs in the next gallery.

Formerly attributed to Jan van Eyck as well as to Petrus Christus, this panel is now known to have been painted about 1500, at a moment of renewed interest in Van Eyck's art.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/works_of_art/collection_database/europe...