Vintage 1940s Cornelis Massys "The Arrival at Bethlehem" Imaginary Landscape Art Print Folio

A dramatic print of The Arrival at Bethlehem by Cornelis Massys (Flemish School— Circa 1508-1550) tipped into its own thick portfolio with information and provenance of the work enclosed. Folio is made of thick vintage textured paper with a lovely patina.

10" x 13"

Commentary on the work of art and the artist Circa late 1950s: “It's a hard lot being the talented son of a great father at least as far as the history books are concerned. The history books are apt to give a whole chapter to the old man and nary a mention to you. When they speak of Massys, for instance, they mean Quentin Massys, who was the most famous of Antwerp's painters; his son, Cornelis, is just there as his father's apprentice, although his mastery in his own right would seem to be apparent enough in the original of this reproduction.

What Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., in Western European Painting of the Renaissance, says of Quentin Massys can in a measure be applied to Cornelis. He notes in Massys "the successful endeavor to animate the (late Gothic) style through a more emotional utterance . . . a color no longer conventional and merely decorative, but specifically dramatic; a composition more dense, complicated and energetic; a more lyrical pathos and more popular humor; a greater sensitiveness to characteristic or passing mood in portraiture.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where the original may be seen, gives The Arrival at Bethlehem and The Imaginary Landscape as alternate titles, but prefers the use of the first. The painting is not signed or dated; prior to 1530, the year of Quentin's death, Cornelis worked anonymously as apprentice to his father. When the picture was bought from a Russian collection in 1910 it was ascribed to Patiner, but scholars have since credited it to Cornelis Massys on internal evidence of style.”