On Monday, May 20, Christie’s announced the upcoming sale of The Madonna of the Cherries by Quentin Metsys. Considered long lost until a recent restoration, the Early Netherlandish masterpiece is currently on view at Christie’s New York until May 22. It will then return to Christie’s London for a pre-sale exhibition from June 28 until the Old Masters Part I Sale on July 2.
The Madonna of the Cherries Could Fetch Over $10 Million
“One of the most celebrated paintings” by the Flemish artist Quentin Metsys, according to Christie’s, The Madonna of the Cherries (c. 1520s) will be a key highlight of the Old Masters Part I Sale at the auction house’s London headquarters on July 2. Metsys painted the Madonna at the height of his artistic maturity during the Northern Renaissance era, influencing multiple generations of artists and inspiring several copies and variants. The painting is estimated to sell for £8–12 million ($10–15 million).
Henry Pettifer, Christie’s International Deputy Chairman of Old Master Paintings, said in a statement, “We are delighted to be offering this work by Quentin Metsys that has only recently been recognized as the prime version of his celebrated late masterpiece—The Madonna of the Cherries—which helped cement his reputation as the founder of the Antwerp School of painting.”
After Rediscovery, Conservation Revealed Metsys’s Hand
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Sign up to our Free Weekly NewsletterThe Madonna of the Cherries by Quentin Metsys was considered a beloved masterwork during the artist’s lifetime. It first belonged to the prestigious Kunstkammer of Cornelis van der Geest, one of the most famous art collections of the era. By the late 17th century, the painting had been sold and its whereabouts were unknown. It finally reappeared at a sale in 1920 in Paris. By then, its composition had been so altered—including the addition of a curtain obscuring the window and landscape, and a discolored layer of varnish—that it was no longer recognized as Metsys’s Madonna.
For the next century, the painting was considered to be a studio variant inspired by the missing Metsys original. After being sold again in 2015, the painting underwent a transformative conservation process. The varnish and overpainting were removed, revealing the original paint surface that scholars identified as the “prime version” of Quentin Metsys’s The Madonna of the Cherries.
Who Was Quentin Metsys?
Also known by alternative spellings Quintin and Matsys, Quentin Mestys was a Flemish artist who painted in the Early Netherlandish tradition. He was born in Leuven, a Flemish city in modern-day Belgium, around 1466. He most likely trained as an ironsmith before becoming a professional painter. Metsys was an active artist in Antwerp for over two decades. There, he founded the Antwerp School, which became the leading school of painting in 16th-century Flanders. Quentin Metsys’s strikingly satirical style—and simultaneous religious, moralizing undertones—introduced inspiring new ideas to Flemish art without dismissing Early Netherlandish conventions. His work is characterized by straightforward modeling, vibrant pigments, and meticulous detail, as well as a devotion to realism that sometimes borders on grotesque.
