Hulin de Loo, Georges: Early Flemish paintings in the Renders Collection at Bruges: exhibited at the Belgian Exhibition, Burlington House, January 1927 (London, 1927)

felt inclined to confuse their activity and to attribute their works
to one single individuality. Our Virgin seems to be a contem -
porary of the Magdalen, reading, in the National Gallery :
we see the same widely - slit eyes, the same lightly marked
eyebrows, the same face with the oval of the lower part
already narrowed, the same thick lips, especially fleshy in their
central part. We must be in the years between 1436 and 1440.
It is interesting to note that, besides the qualities of the
workmanship, the delicacy and surety of the line, the softness
of the modeling, the transparency of the delicate grey shades
which are so characteristic of Rogier’s touch, our panel seems
to find in itself a proof of its priority in relation to the
tondos. In our picture, in fact, we can realise the logical and
sure manner in which the Child is carried — this is not the
case in the replicas — the Mother’s hands, as regards the
position of the Child, are placed at the same height as in
the Frankfort picture : on the contrary, in the two tondos
which Mr. Friedlander selects as types, by reason of the
round shape of the tondos, there is a lack of space, and
therefore one of the hands has had to be raised and from
the same cause, the dressing of the hair has had to be lowered :
this fact would appear to indicate the passing of the primitive
if The subject of the Virgin suckling the Child is not Robert
Campin’s own invention. On the contrary, it is one of the
most ancient themes of Christianity, continued by the Copts
already in the 6th. century, perhaps in memory of Isis; its
trace can be followed either by allusions to it in certain hymns,

I

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