The Master of the Embroidered Foliage (active – ) is the
Notname
In art history, a ''Notname'' (, "necessity-name" or "contingency-name") is an invented name given to an artist whose identity has been lost. The practice arose from the need to give such artists and their typically untitled, or generically title ...
for an
Early Netherlandish painter
Early Netherlandish painting, traditionally known as the Flemish Primitives, refers to the work of artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period. ...
or a group of painters who worked out of
Bruges
Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the country by population.
The area of the whole city a ...
and
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
.
In 1926 the German art historian
Max Jakob Friedländer
Max Jakob Friedländer (5 July 1867 in Berlin – 11 October 1958 in Amsterdam) was a German museum curator and art historian. He was a specialist in Early Netherlandish painting and the Northern Renaissance, who volunteered at the Kupferstichkab ...
attributed a group of paintings of the Virgin and Child in a landscape, in identical poses to the "Master of the Embroidered Foliage". The foliage painted in these works was likened by Friedländer to the repeated pattern of stitches in embroidery, thus the unusual name for the artist. The paintings show elements of previous works by
Rogier van der Weyden
Rogier van der Weyden () or Roger de la Pasture (1399 or 140018 June 1464) was an early Netherlandish painter whose surviving works consist mainly of religious triptychs, altarpieces, and commissioned single and diptych portraits. He was highly ...
and
Hans Memling
Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...
. Of the five paintings considered by Friedländer, three are in the United States, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United Stat ...
, and
Clark Art Institute
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculp ...
, and the other two in Europe, at the
Groeningemuseum
The Groeningemuseum is a municipal museum in Bruges, Belgium, built on the site of the medieval Eekhout Abbey.
It houses a collection of Flemish and Belgian painting covering six centuries, from Jan van Eyck to Marcel Broodthaers. The museum ...
, Bruges, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Lille
Lille ( , ; nl, Rijsel ; pcd, Lile; vls, Rysel) is a city in the northern part of France, in French Flanders. On the river Deûle, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France region, the prefecture of the N ...
. Other paintings attributed to this group of artists are in the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in Paris, the
Detroit Institute of Arts
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), located in Midtown Detroit, Michigan, has one of the largest and most significant art collections in the United States. With over 100 galleries, it covers with a major renovation and expansion project comple ...
, and in the
National Gallery of Scotland
The Scottish National Gallery (formerly the National Gallery of Scotland) is the national art gallery of Scotland. It is located on The Mound in central Edinburgh, close to Princes Street. The building was designed in a neoclassical style by W ...
, Edinburgh; these also show a very similar Virgin and Child, but against somewhat different backgrounds.
The
Clark Art Institute
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculp ...
conclude their investigation of the "Virgin and Child in a Landscape" paintings as follows:
"Our analysis, based on laboratory study and consideration of fifteenth-century workshop practices, demonstrates that these panels were all produced between 1482 and the early 16th century not by one but by several artists, perhaps sharing a common template for the main figures. Unless further conclusive evidence comes to light, however, we will continue to attribute the paintings to the Master of the Embroidered Foliage, while acknowledging that this is a catch-all name referring to a number of painters active in Brussels and Bruges in the late 15th century."Who was the Master of the Embroidered Foliage? /ref>