Flemish school 16th century, 130 cm, Maître Fils Prodigue workshop 1530/1580, Red Sea passage

Flemish school 16th century, 130cm, Atelier Maître Fils Prodigue 1530/1580, passage mer rouge

Period: Flemish school of the 16th century, circa 1580
Signed : anonymous
Theme: Religious, crossing the Red Sea
Technique: Oil on 4 oak panels with parquet - old restorations - good condition
Format : Large format with frame 130 x 97 cm - unframed 100 x 76 cm
Frame : Recent carved wood - good condition

This remarkable composition is set in a typically Flemish pictorial context, with a wealth of characters and details.
The painting can be attributed to the Master of the Son of the Prodigal, an Antwerp artist. This is often the name given to artists whose identity is unknown, who produced a number of works grouped around a painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna entitled The Prodigal Son among the Courtesans (successively attributed to Mandijn, van Palermo and Kroes).

His style is influenced by Roman painting and borrowings from International Mannerism.
His feminine figures, with their dignified, even prim appearance, bring him closer to the work of Frans Floris (1520-1570), and his realism to that of Peter Aertsen (1508-1575).
The same mood as in the paintings by Le Maitre du Fils Prodigue can be found in this painting, with figures whose ample, exaggerated movements are accentuated by the improbable length of their limbs. The color palette is also characteristic of the Antwerp painter's work.
The Master of the Prodigal Son mainly illustrated religious themes from the Old and New Testaments. Some of his creations were mass-produced, suggesting that he ran a large workshop in Antwerp.

Around this faceless artist and his assistants, specialists have grouped together some forty paintings found in museums and churches in Europe and the United States (a Virgin and Child can be seen at the Cleveland Museum). Art historians attribute to him Christ and the Emmaus Pilgrims in the Warsaw Museum, Satan Sowing Weeds in the Antwerp Museum of Fine Arts, Return of Tobias in the Ghent Museum, Court of Miracles in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, and Susanna and the Elders in the Porto Museum. Similarly, when we consult the Joconde database, the portal to French museum collections, we find oil-on-wood paintings by the Master of the Prodigal Son, such as La Vertu qui récompense le Travail et châtie la Paresse from the Musée de Chambéry, Les Noces de Cana from the Musée de Rouen, La Vierge à l'enfant avec saint Jean-Baptiste from the Musée de Pau, Les Oeuvres de Miséricorde from the Musée de Valenciennes, and Le Vieillard amoureux from the Musée de Douai.

The passage of the Red Sea :
is a biblical and Koranic tale of how the sea, which blocked the passage of the Israelites fleeing the Egyptian army, miraculously opened up to let the Israelites through and closed in on their pursuers.
The Hebrews are facing the Red Sea or Sea of Reeds when the Egyptian troops set off in pursuit. Moses stretches out his hands towards the Sea, whose waters part to leave a passage. The people enter the corridor. In their turn, the Egyptians enter, but Moses causes the sea to return to its place, swallowing up Pharaoh's troops.
This story is considered one of the founding events of Judaism, underpinning its belief in miraculous redemption by a personal God. It is traditionally read on the seventh day of Pesach.
The Red Sea Exodus is the ancient mythical tale of a divine war (conflict between the Creator God and the primeval Ocean, like the Canaanite myth of Baal versus Yam), taken up by a priestly author who historicizes the myth by placing it in the biblical context of the deliverance of the Hebrew people from the Egyptians.

Sold with Invoice and Certificate

On view at our gallery in L'Isle sur la Sorgue (France) at weekends.
Free shipping within France.
And on estimate for foreign countries

A1415

Ref: SF4ECWIOYN