Master of the Embroidered Foliage (active in Brussels and Bruges 1480-1510)
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden
oil on panel
50.2 x 33.8cm (19 3/4 x 13 5/16in).
Footnotes:
Provenance
Collection of John Linnell, until sold by order of his trustees
Linnell sale, Christie's, London, 15 March 1918, lot 135
Collection of Leopold Hirsch, 10 Kensington Park Gardens, London
His sale, Christie's, London, 11 May 1934, lot 105 (for £819 to J.R. Thomas)
Mrs George Kidston and thence by descent through the family

Exhibited
London, The Royal Academy, Exhibition of Flemish and Belgian Art 1300-1900, 1927, no. 80 (lent by Leopold Hirsch)
Bristol, Art of the West Country, 1937, no. 196
Manchester, City of Manchester Art Gallery, Art Treasures Centenary Exhibition, 30 October - 31 December 1957, no. 29 (lent by John Kidston)

Literature
M.J. Friedländer, Altniederländishe Malerei, vol. IV, pp. 70 and 134, no. 36 (as the work of a follower and free imitation of the Vienna picture)
A. Scherer, 'Vom Andachtsbild zum Sammlerbild. Varianten des Sündenfalls von Hugo van der Goes', in K. Bergdolt, G. Bonsanti (ed.), Opere e giorni. Studi su mille anni di arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel, Venice, 2001, pp. 363-70, ill., p. 365, pl. 3
F. Gombert, 'Un réseau de collaborations d'artistes', in Le Maitre au Feuillage brodé. Primitifs flamands. Secrets d'ateliers, Lille, 2005, p. 33
A. Scherer, 'Adam et Ève dans l'atelier du Maître au Feuillage brodé et la question de l'anonymat', in F. Gombert en D. Martens (ed.), Le Maître au Feuillage brodé. Démarches d'artistes et méthodes d'attribution d'oeuvres à un peintre anonyme des anciens Pays-Bas du XVe siècle, Lille, 2007, p. 33


The unusual name for this early Netherlandish artist was penned by Max J. Friedländer in 1926 when he attributed a group of Madonna and Child in a landscape to 'The Master of the Embroidered Foliage'. In these works he likened the meticulous, repetitive foliage to the repeated pattern of embroidery stitches.
Florence Gombert's research reveals that the Master's works were created by a variety of artists from different workshops across Flanders, rather than by a single artist (Gombert, op. cit., 2005). In 2001, Annette Scherer attributed three paintings, including our picture of Adam and Eve to the Master of the Embroidered Foliage (see: A. Scherer, 'Vom Andachtsbild zum Sammlerbild. Varianten des Sündenfalls von Hugo van der Goes', in K. Bergdolt, G. Bonsanti (ed.), Opere e giorni. Studi su mille anni di arte europea dedicati a Max Seidel, Venice, 2001, pp. 363-70). One of the other two versions was formerly in the collection of Dr. Otto Scheider and offered at Christie's, 20 November 2012, lot 86 (49.6 x 33cm). The second version is in the Wilhelm-Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen (47.5 x 33cm, inv. no. 457/42) (see A. Scherer, op.cit., 2005, cat. nos. 24,25,26).
All three works are derived from the Hugo van der Goes altarpiece in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (fig. 1) but each differs in the details; a doe only appears in the Ludwigshafen version and a kingfisher can be seen in the left foreground of the present work. The Ludwigshafen and Christie's versions have more in common for each depicts a similar lion, left and Adam in an identical loin cloth. The present work relates closest to the van der Goes altarpiece, as it is the only version where Eve holds the apple in her hand, and Scherer argues that it is likely to be the earliest of the three versions (op. cit, 2007, p. 36). This workshop practice of creating several versions, each with different backgrounds and details, suggests that this composition of 'Adam and Eve' was clearly popular at the time.