The Virgin

The Virgin Mary gazes to her right, her hands folded in prayer. She is richly dressed: her mantle is edged with delicate gold embroidery dotted with pearls, and her blue underdress is lined with brown fur. On her head is a circlet of three strands of pearls held with a jewelled catch, and a transparent veil woven of very fine threads.This is the right wing of a small diptych; Christ is the left wing. It was not originally painted to go with Christ, but was adapted very early on – it was perhaps part of Massys‘ stock and was cut down to match the other panel while still in the workshop.The Virgin here is more composed than she appears in the very popular diptychs that showed her as the Mater Dolorosa facing Christ as the ’Man of Sorrows', produced in the workshops of Dirk Bouts and Albrecht Bouts. She is more in the tradition of the Virgin in Hubert and Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (St Bavo’s Cathedral, Ghent) and its imitators.