The Virgin Mediator with Jeanne la Folle

Colijn de Coter, a Brussels painter active from around 1480 to 1510, painted this Virgin Mediator with Joanna la Folle around 1493. De Coter worked in the tradition of Rogier van der Weyden, adapting the great master's emotional compositions for late fifteenth-century patrons. The inclusion of Joanna as a donor figure connects this devotional work to the Spanish-Burgundian royal house. This work belongs to the High Renaissance, when the innovations of the preceding century were synthesized into works of monumental clarity and ideal beauty.

Oil on panel in the Brussels tradition descended from Rogier van der Weyden. De Coter's dramatic emotional expressions and rich drapery demonstrate his command of the Rogierian devotional vocabulary.