MASTER of Flémalle
(b. ca. 1375, Valenciennes, d. 1444, Tournai)

The Virgin and Child before a Firescreen

1430
Oil on wood, 63 x 49 cm
National Gallery, London

In the period of the International Gothic closed rooms in depictions of the birth of the Virgin, the Annunciation and Virgin and Child had open windows that gave a view out on to a wide landscape, as if the holy events were happening in a building on the summit of a hill. The view through the window became a landscape painting.




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