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拍品专文
Diana Metcalf Stainow (1926-2019) was born and raised in Boston and after her marriage to Gregory Stainow, who she met in New York, she moved to France, eventually splitting her time between Paris and London. She was a painter with an eye for color and pattern and a profound interest in non-western cultures. Her taste was grounded in her family American cultural heritage. She was a descendant of Robert Treat Paine, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a founding member of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Her grandfather, Robert Treat Paine II, was a renowned Boston collector who gifted many masterpieces to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Her father, Thomas Metcalf, was one of the founders of the Boston Institute of Contemporary art, formerly called then the Boston Museum of Modern Art.
During World War II, the Institute became the home of the Metcalf family who occupied the two top floors of the building; the distinction between private and public space was blurred as local artists, members of the Institute, were welcome in the Metcalf household. During these formative artistic years for Diana – who attended the Boston Museum School – the Institute had an exhibition program striking for its diversity, inclusiveness and daring representation of the vitality of American art during the 1940’s in addition to its contemporary European programming. This period was decisive in shaping her approach to collecting which ranged across centuries, cultures and styles. In the 40’s The Institute had a first solo show of Georges Rouault and exhibited works by Leger and Maillol – all artists in her collection that are now being sold. Stainow’s idiosyncratic approach was also evident in her elegant apartment in London. With her unique and daring eye she commissioned a graffiti artist to paint the entrance foyer and hung Rouault tapestries and Toulouse-Lautrec Elle prints over the graffiti to striking effect.
Considered by Friedländer to be one of the most popular and successful painters of the second-quarter of the sixteenth century, the Master of the Female Half-Lengths specialised in sensitively painted depictions of young women and female saints, often fashionably dressed and set within contemporary interiors. Here, the scene is cropped quite closely around the figures, isolating them against a dark background. The Virgin, dressed in a blue robe and pinkish-red mantle, nurses the Infant Christ as He sits on a velvet cushion, resting on a draped ledge. The pear placed prominently in the foreground may be an allusion to the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, referencing Christ and the Virgin as the new Adam and the new Eve. Pears were also incorporated in depictions of the Virgin and Child as symbols of the sweetness of the soul, reflected in a passage from Psalm 34: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’. One of the more striking elements of this Virgin and Child is that the Christ Child is shown holding one of his feet. This can be seen as a tender evocation of his infancy, but may also have been intended as a devotional focus for the image, since Christ’s feet would later bear the signs of His Passion. In drawing attention to Christ’s feet in this way, the viewer is reminded of Christ’s future sacrifice. Images of the nursing Virgin grew in popularity during the Middle Ages. In showing the quiet tenderness of the relationship between a mother and her son, these images fostered the notion that through the Virgin, and her intercession, the devout might gain redemption.
The position of the figures and the ledge on which Christ rests, covered in a draped green cloth, was evidently informed by a painting by Joos van Cleve (1485-1541) of the Holy Family executed in circa 1512-13 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection), itself derived from a celebrated painting by Jan van Eyck, known as the Lucca Madonna (1437; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie).
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for endorsing the attribution after first-hand inspection.
During World War II, the Institute became the home of the Metcalf family who occupied the two top floors of the building; the distinction between private and public space was blurred as local artists, members of the Institute, were welcome in the Metcalf household. During these formative artistic years for Diana – who attended the Boston Museum School – the Institute had an exhibition program striking for its diversity, inclusiveness and daring representation of the vitality of American art during the 1940’s in addition to its contemporary European programming. This period was decisive in shaping her approach to collecting which ranged across centuries, cultures and styles. In the 40’s The Institute had a first solo show of Georges Rouault and exhibited works by Leger and Maillol – all artists in her collection that are now being sold. Stainow’s idiosyncratic approach was also evident in her elegant apartment in London. With her unique and daring eye she commissioned a graffiti artist to paint the entrance foyer and hung Rouault tapestries and Toulouse-Lautrec Elle prints over the graffiti to striking effect.
Considered by Friedländer to be one of the most popular and successful painters of the second-quarter of the sixteenth century, the Master of the Female Half-Lengths specialised in sensitively painted depictions of young women and female saints, often fashionably dressed and set within contemporary interiors. Here, the scene is cropped quite closely around the figures, isolating them against a dark background. The Virgin, dressed in a blue robe and pinkish-red mantle, nurses the Infant Christ as He sits on a velvet cushion, resting on a draped ledge. The pear placed prominently in the foreground may be an allusion to the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, referencing Christ and the Virgin as the new Adam and the new Eve. Pears were also incorporated in depictions of the Virgin and Child as symbols of the sweetness of the soul, reflected in a passage from Psalm 34: ‘O taste and see that the Lord is good’. One of the more striking elements of this Virgin and Child is that the Christ Child is shown holding one of his feet. This can be seen as a tender evocation of his infancy, but may also have been intended as a devotional focus for the image, since Christ’s feet would later bear the signs of His Passion. In drawing attention to Christ’s feet in this way, the viewer is reminded of Christ’s future sacrifice. Images of the nursing Virgin grew in popularity during the Middle Ages. In showing the quiet tenderness of the relationship between a mother and her son, these images fostered the notion that through the Virgin, and her intercession, the devout might gain redemption.
The position of the figures and the ledge on which Christ rests, covered in a draped green cloth, was evidently informed by a painting by Joos van Cleve (1485-1541) of the Holy Family executed in circa 1512-13 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Lehman Collection), itself derived from a celebrated painting by Jan van Eyck, known as the Lucca Madonna (1437; Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie).
We are grateful to Till-Holger Borchert for endorsing the attribution after first-hand inspection.