Follower of Gerard David; 19th century.

Follower of GÉRARD DAVID (Oudewater, Netherlands, 1450 - Bruges); 19th century.
"Madonna of the soups".
Oil on antique panel.
Measurements: 41 x 31 cm; 53 x 41 cm (frame).
The present painting is part of the wide diffusion and critical fortune of the famous model created by Gerard David, known as Madonna and Child with the Milk Soup, one of the most unique images of late medieval Marian devotion. The work catalogued here faithfully follows that iconography, reinterpreting it from a language typical of the Flemish workshops active between the end of the 15th century and the early 16th century, a time of extraordinary circulation of pictorial models through copies, variants and adaptations.
The scene represents the Virgin Mary seated in a domestic space, holding a spoon of milk soup with which she feeds the Child Jesus, who actively participates in the daily gesture. This detail, apparently trivial, constitutes the symbolic core of the composition: the humanity of Christ is underlined by an intimate and maternal action, charged with tenderness and proximity. In contrast to the more solemn representations of the Virgo lactans, this iconographic type proposes a silent devotion, based on the empathy and emotional identification of the faithful.
From the stylistic point of view, the work maintains the essential features of Gerard David's model: the serenity of the figures, expressive restraint, descriptive precision and compositional balance.
Gerard David's original, preserved in the Musei di Strada Nuovi in Genoa, exerted a notable influence both in Flanders and in other European territories, favored by the commercial and artistic networks that linked northern Europe with Italy.