Gosssaert, Jan gen. Mabuse (Nachfolger) Maubeuge um 1478 - Antwerpen 1534 81 x 58 cm The Virgin with Child. Oil/panel. Private collection Aachen, acquired from the 1950s to the 1970s. This well-known composition derives from a model created by Jan Gossaert around 1520 (The Hague, Mauritshuis, inv. no. 830, 25.3 x 29.6 cm). The presentation of the Child playing with his mother's veil, a novelty in Flemish painting, obtained a large audience in Antwerp in the mid-16th century. Originally designed before a dark background, the figures appear here in front of a landscape. Karel van Mander, famous writer of the Schilderboek published in 1604, describes that Paul van Aelst, son of Pieter Coecke, was a skilled copyist of Gossaert. While in The Hague version the master uses the royal blue colour for the Virgin's mantle, it should be noted that in most if not in nearly all later versions the Virgin wears a red coat. Therefore and given other substantial differences that distinguish the later variants from the Mauritshuis painting it is not excluded that they all maybe derive from another, now lost autograph model by Gossaert.