Scholarship continues to sort out the complicated stylistic relationships of the Flemish Early Renaissance artists working in Tournai. What seems certain is that Robert Campin (active 1406–44), previously known only as the Master of Flémalle, strongly influenced his principal apprentices. Along with Jan van Eyck, Campin and his followers made a radical break from the International Gothic style, establishing a new Flemish realism enriched by a precise and meticulous attention to details and taking advantage of the glazing possibilities of the newly popular oil medium. The Blisses purchased Portrait of a Lady as the work of the Master of Flémalle, and only since 1993 have scholars strongly attributed the painting to Daret.

The lady of this portrait is in a half-length pose turned toward the left, where on the background at the top is the inscription: SIBYLLA AGRIPPA. A 1900 photograph shows the painting also having a second inscription, ALOISIA SABAUDA, at the left of the painting above the book. Traces of the first inscription have been revealed with cleaning, although the conservators concluded that neither inscription was original to the painting. Knowledge of the inscriptions suggested to some that the sitter was from the House of Savoy, possibly Louise of Savoy, Duchess d’Angoulême (1476–1503) and mother of the French King François I.

Jacques Daret entered the household of Robert Campin and in 1427 became an apprentice and trained alongside Rogier van der Weyden. In 1432, Daret became a free master in the Tournai Guild of St. Luke and immediately established highly regarded ateliers in Tournai and Arras.

J. Carder

Friedländer, Max J. Werk über die Renaissance-Austellungen. Berlin: 1899, 10.

Catalogue des Tableaux Anciens...Provenant de la Collection Cernuschi...Galerie Georges Petit. Paris: 1900, 73, no. 143, ill.

Reinach, Solomon. Répertoire de Peintures Du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (1280-1580) 2. Paris: 1907, 144, no. 2.

Ring, Grete. Beitraege zur Geschichte niederlandischer Bildnismalerei im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Leipzig: 1913, 171.

Friedländer, Max J. Die Altniederländische Malerei 2, Rogier van der Weyden und der Meister von Flémalle. Berlin: 1924, 109, no. 57 and Leiden: 1937, 144, no. 2.

Mayer, August. "Roger van der Weyden and the Master of Flemalle," Burlington Magazine 48, no. 274 (January 1926), 40, ill.

Reinach, Solomon. Burlington Magazine (February 1926), 112.

Beaux-Arts: Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité 8, no. 9 (September 1930), cover and 2, fig. 3.

Hulin de Loo, Georges. Trésor de l'Art Flamand du Moyen Age au XVIIIe siècle (Mémorial de l'exposition d'art flamand ancien à Anvers 1930) 1. Brussels: 1932, 32ff.

Beaux-Arts: Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité 76, no. 324 (March 17, 1939), 3.

de Tolnay, Charles. Le Maitre de Flémalle et les frères van Eyck. Brussels: 1939, 60, no. 12.

Schoolman, Regina, and Charles E. Slatkin. The Enjoyment of Art in America. New York: Lippincott, 1942), pl. 346.

Panofsky, Erwin. Early Netherlandish Painting, its Origins and Character. Cambridge: 1953 and New York: 1971, 175, 334 n. 3.

Collobi Ragghianti, Licia. In del'Arte 10. (1955), 38.

Frinta, Mojmir S. The Genius of Robert Campin. Paris: La Haye, 1966), 119.

Troescher, Georg. Burgundische Malerei, Maler und Malwerke um 1400 in Burgund, dem Berry mit der Auvergne und in Savoyen mit ihren Quellen und Ausstrablungen 1. Berlin: 1966, 348, 418 n. 51.

Friedländer, Max J. Early Netherlandisch Painting 2, Rogier van der Weyden and the Master of Flémalle, with notes and commentary by Nicole Veronee-Verhaegen. Bruxelles: Leyde, 1967), 72, n. 63, pl. 84.

Troescher, Georg. "Die Pilgerfahrt des Robert Campin." Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen 9 (1967), 107.

Sterling, Charles. "Etudes Savoyardes 1: Au temps du Duc Amédée." L'Oeil 178 (October 1969), 2-13, fig. 16.

Davies, Martin. Rogier van der Weyden, An Essay with a critical Catalogue of Paintings assigned to him and to Robert Campin. London: Phaidon, 1972,261.

Campbell, Lorne. Portrait Painting in the Netherlands: Campin and His Circle. Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1973, 230-239.

Gougain, Michel. Les Primitifs de Savoie. Musées de Chambéry: 1987, 11, ill.

Châtelet, Albert. Robert Campin Le Maître de Flémalle, La fascination du quotidien. Anvers: 1996, 320, ill. D6.

Campbell, Lorne. "Campin's Portraits." In Foister, Susan, and Susie Nash, eds. Robert Campin New Directions in Scholarship. Brepols Publishers, 1996, 129-130, figs. 12-13 [attributed to Jacques Daret].

Borchert, Till-Holger. The Age of Van Eyck, The Mediterranean World and Early Netherlandish Painting, 1430-1530. Ghent/Amsterdam: Ludion, 2002), 41, 232, fig. 47.

Bühl, Gudrun, editor. Dumbarton Oaks, The Collections. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (distributed by Harvard University Press), 2008, 306f, ill.

Bellavitis, Maddalena. Telle depente forestiere. Quadri nordici nel Veneto: le fonti e la tecnica. Padua: Cleup, 2010), 320-323, 326-327, pl. 27.

"Exposition internationale coloniale, maritime et d'art flamand-Exposition d'art flamand ancien," Antwerp, 6-9/1930, cat. vol. 1, no. 138.

"Paintings and Sculpture Owned in Washington," The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, 4/15-30/1937, cat. no. 19 (ill.).

"Exhibition of Belgian Art," Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 6/17-23/1937, cat. p. 5, no. 7.

"The Worcester-Philadelphia Exhibition of Flemish Painting," Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA, 2/23-3/12/1939, and Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 3/25-4/26/1939, cat. p. 19, no. 3, fig. 3.

"Masterpieces of Art," New York World's Fair, 1939, 5/27-10/31/1939 (check list for gallery IV, no. 7).

"Art of the Northern Renaissance," Busch-Reisinger Museum of Germanic Culture, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2/13-4/1/1967.

"Jan van Eyck, de Vlaamse Primitiven het Zuiden, 1430-1530/Jan van Eyck, Early Netherlandsich Painting and the European South, 1430-1530," Groeningemuseum, Brugge/Bruges, 3/15-6/30/2002, no. 16.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 12/9/2005-8/13/2007.

Pozzi Collection, Cremona, first traceable in 1858.

Mors Collection.

René Boylesue Collection, Paris.

Collection of Henri Cernuschi (1821-1896), Paris;

Sold at his postumous auction by Galerie Georges Petit, no. 143, on May 25, 1900;

Purchased from the dealer Wildenstein, Paris, by Robert Woods Bliss, July 10, 1933;[1]

Collection of Mildred Barnes and Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, DC, July 10, 1923 - November 29, 1940;

Gifted to Harvard University, November 29, 1940;

Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, House Collection, Washington, DC.


Notes:
[1] Bill of sale in object file