Virgin and Child, after Cornelis van Poelenburgh

Poelenburgh, along with Bartholomaeus Breenburgh, was the first of a number of Dutch painters who went to Italy and developed an idiom reconciling more realistic topography with the arcadian vision of Claude Lorrain. Their paintings were reproduced by various etchers in a delicately drawn, lightly bitten, therefore appropriately luminous manner. Bronchorst was the principal interpreter of Poelenburgh. Most of his forty etchings reproduce the artist’s Italianate landscapes. This very rare print brings the same exquisite touch, delicate tonality, and ideal mood to a religious subject.