Pierre Soulages: Un de mes premiers dessins réalisés vers l'âge de 5 ans fit rire toute ma famille. J'avais balafré de noir une feuille de papier. Quand on me demanda ce que c'était, je répondis "un paysage de neige". Avec le noir, j'avais simplement voulu rendre le blanc du papier plus blanc...
Sotheby's New York.This major painting was estimated between US $ 1,5 and 2 million. Gossart studied painting in Rome circa 1508-1509 and his paintings are much influenced by Northern Italian painters of the Renaissance. He then worked in Utrecht and in Antwerp. The present important and highly detailed Madonna and Child relates directly to the central panel of a small triptych in the Museo Nazionale, Palermo and referred to as the Malvagna Triptych. It was probably painted shortly before that work measuring 45.5 x 35 cm whose reverse of its shutters depicting Saints Catherine and Barbara, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden was inspired by a Durer woodcut of the subject illustrated in the Small passion published in 1511. The Madonna and Child sold by Sotheby's was probably executed around 1510 after Gossaert's return from Italy. Almost like a manuscript miniature, it revels in its sense of detail and its jewel-like palette. Infrared reflectography revealed Gossaert's extensive preparatory underdrawing on the surface of the prepared panel and also that at some point in the past the face of the Virgin had been badly damaged, may be a reason for the final bid.