Unveiled: The $22 Million Renaissance Masterpiece Hiding a Drooling Dragon-Dog That Defies History
Despite these strange details, the painting was clearly done by a talented artist who aimed to “dazzle” their audience. And art experts have a few guesses about who the mystery painter could be.
Who Created This Bizarre Painting Bought By The National Gallery For $22 Million?
Public DomainThe painter behind The Virgin And Child With Saints Louis And Margaret may be Jan Gossaert, a 16th-century Netherlandish painter.
Though many questions about the The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret remain, an in-depth study of the painting answered some of these. Experts in dendrochronology, which looks at tree rings to estimate age, found that the wood in the painting suggests that it was made after 1483. The wood is also made with Baltic oak, which suggests that the artist was not French (because French artists often used locally sourced oak).
Excluding French candidates like Jean Hey, the style of the painting is reminiscent of Netherlandish artists like Jan van Eyck, Hugo van der Goes, and, especially, Jan Gossaert.
“The dramatically foreshortened faces of the saints and angels are reminiscent of some of [Gossaert’s] early drawings,” the National Gallery noted. “Both artists also used similar underdrawing techniques, especially the way of sketching the ocular cavities, the knuckles, the shading of the Virgin’s forehead, and the absence of wash. The eccentricity that pervades the panel also recalls Gossaert’s manner. However, the facture of The Virgin and Child with Saints Louis and Margaret and Two Angels is generally less crisp, and no definitive conclusions can be drawn from these observations.”
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