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Master of the Morrison Triptych

Flemish, active early 16th century

BiographyNetherlandish painter. He is named after a triptych of the Virgin and Child (Toledo, OH, Mus. A.), formerly in the Morrison Collection, Fonthill, Wilts, which is partly derived from a triptych of the same subject by Hans Memling (Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.). Friedländer ascribed other paintings to the Master on the basis of this panel, including the Virgin and Child with Saints in a Garden (London, N.G.), a scene bathed in sunlight, and an Adoration of the Magi (Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A.). The latter represents a view of Antwerp in the background with the unfinished cathedral tower, suggesting a date of c. 1510. Friedländer noted the influence of Quentin Metsys’s figure types, and there are also similarities in the oval heads and smooth modelling to works by artists of the early Haarlem school, especially Geertgen tot Sint Jans.

Friedländer suggested that the artist was the pupil of Metsys who registered as ‘Adriaen’ in the Antwerp painters’ guild in 1495; he further believed that this Adriaen was the same artist who entered as a master in 1503. Nieto Gallo also identified the Master as Metsys’s pupil Adriaen but proposed that he was one Adriaen Skilleman, who became a master in 1499. Valentiner argued that the Master was a north Netherlandish painter named Simon van Harlem, who was active in Antwerp from 1502–24, which would explain the similarities to Dutch art. However, Davies doubted that the London painting was by the same hand as the Morrison Triptych and questioned, in fact, whether most of the panels ascribed to the Master were by one artist.

Hans M. Schmidt, et al. "Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T055065pg269 (accessed March 6, 2012)

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