MEMLING, Hans

The two pictures are on the back side of the side wings of a small triptych, they can be seen when the altar is closed. In the open state the triptych represents the Madonna Enthroned with Saints, in an architectural setting.

The picture shows the central panel of a triptych. The left and right wings of the triptych depict the Nativity and the Presentation of the Temple, respectively.

The picture shows a detail of the central panel of the triptych. In the later Middle Ages one of the Magi was conventionally shown as black.

In the 1480s Memling was at the peak of his abilities and his output had grown to such an extent that we must suppose that he not only worked quickly and efficiently, but that he also had assistants. The latter might have applied the first layers of colour to the drawing or might even have executed background figures or trees and plants in the style of the master. The input of journeymen is generally impossible to distinguish because it merges imperceptibly into the uniformity of the finished product. The Advent and Triumph of Christ, for instance, which measures two metres across and was completed in 1480, displays consistent painterly virtuosity and dazzling colour from corner to corner. Wrongly interpreted as the Seven Joys of the Virgin, it consists of a biblical world landscape in which the story of the Salvation is set in an ingenious narrative and spatial manner, linked syntactically by the procession of the Magi as they cross the picture plane. It is the joyful counterpart to the earlier Scenes from the Passion of Christ in Turin, and is conceived in a similar continuous narrative manner.

The painting was destined for the altar of the Tanners’ guild in the most easterly chapel of Our Lady’s Church in Bruges. It was donated by Pieter Bultinc, `tanner and merchant’, and his wife Katelyne van Ryebeke, as recorded on the old frame, which survived until the end of the eighteenth century.

This rather enigmatic painting has been studied in depth recently, enabling us to venture a more solidly based jjudgment regarding both its authenticity and the significance of the representation. It should be noted at the outset that the topmost part of the landscape has been entirely overpainted and can thus form no part of the interpretation. The rock with the virgin and the lions are, however, still in a fairly good, original condition.

A young woman is shown standing in a giant piece of amethyst. She is wearing a violet-brown Burgundian dress and her hands are crossed level with her lap on a point of the crystal. This characteristically chaste pose is further emphasised by her downward gaze. Two lions, with golden shields attached to their bodies, stand threateningly on either side of a small stream that springs from the rocks and carries gemstones and coral in its current. Because of its colour, amethyst is associated with the violet, the emblem of humility and virginity. The lions are clearly intended as guards and so their shields are military rather than heraldic in function. The spring represents the Water of Life and the gemstones are a reference to Paradise. The image can thus be interpreted as an allegory of the strength of Virginity or Purity, which leads to eternal life. The city in the left distance is influenced to a large extent by the Brussels St Sebastian. This may be attributed almost certainly to the restorer.

Memling produced this three-part panel painting more than half a century after the Ghent Altar-piece of the van Eyck brothers. The central panel not reproduced here shows the figure of Christ surrounded by· singing angels. Thus, laudative music again accompanies the theme of “Majestas Domini”. Formalistically, however, the artist does not follow the famous example. One explanation for this is the original purpose of the panels and their horizontally rectangular shape. They used to decorate the organ loft in the church of the Castilian city of Najera. Located relatively high, they were placed in a long, horizontal row, hence the large and bust-like appearance of the figures.

The accurate rendering of the numerous players may create the impression that the painter wanted to present an ensemble of contemporary musical instruments. In fact, however, the composition reveals an arrangement of strict symmetry, partly suggested by the hierarchical order of angels and the related symbolism of instruments, although the classification is not as clear as in the works of Giotto or Geertgen. In the central panel depicting Christ, six singing angels represent music of the highest order. On each side of Him (on the right of the first panel, and on the left of the second), in a mirror arrangement, are two wind instruments: one trumpet on each side and a zink and busine, representing the order of “trumpeting” herald angels. Moving further away from the centre, on the left we see stringed instruments: a lute, a tromba marina and a psaltery, while on the right the mellower, quieter instruments, a portative organ, a harp and a fiddle. The psaltery, for example, was used exclusively to accompany psalms and beseeching prayers.

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Tiburtio Massaino: Canzon XXXIII

The picture shows one of the fragments of a religious polyptych by Memling, Christ Surrounded by Musician Angels. The carefully ordered and simple composition depicts Christ as Sovereign of the World, giving His blessing, with three singing angels on either side. The two other panels contain five angels playing musical instruments: psaltery, tromba marina, lute, trumpet and oboe (left-hand panel), bassoon, trumpet, portative organ, harp and viol (right-hand panel). Heaven is suggested by the glowing clouds which run from the left across to the right-hand panel. These panels are fragments of a polyptych, now largely lost, which once stood on the high altar of the Benedictine church of Santa Maria la Real in N�jera, Spain.

This small panel is an example of the elegance of the figures painted by Hans Memling.

The Annunciation, a grisaille executed as a tableau vivant, exemplifies the artist’s early style (c. 1467-70), which was still strongly reminiscent of Van der Weyden. The panels originally formed the rear of a pair of triptych wings, which were removed and separated from the paintings on the front. The original altarpiece showed the Crucifixion and was probably commissioned by Jan Crabbe, twenty-sixth abbot of the Abbey of the Dunes in Koksijde. The central panel is now on display in the Museo Civico in Vicenza, while the insides of the wings are in the The Morgan Library and Museum in New York. These panels had been moved to Germany during the occupation and were recovered in 1952. They have since been in the museum on permanent loan.

The Annunciation is one of the earliest examples in the Low Countries of a `natural’ or `living’ grisaille with figures whose bodies are `coloured’.

The influence of Van der Weyden’s Virgins is evident in the figure of the maid helping her mistress Bathsheba from the bath and wrapping a robe around her naked body. The similarity to van der Weyden’s type of Madonna is so striking that scholars were previously inclined to attribute this large painting to him. Not only is this picture unusual for featuring a nude outside a religious context (they usually appeared only in depictions of the Fall or the Last Judgment), but it is significant for revealing a number of features which have helped to define Memling’s significance for 15th-century painting.

Memling constructed a narrative space in this work which is exemplary for northern European painting. On the back wall of the bathroom a window is open, revealing a roof terrace: “And it came to pass in an eveningtide, that David arose from off his bed, and walked upon the roof of the king’s house: and from the roof he saw a woman washing herself; and the woman was very beautiful to look upon.” This is the description of events in the Second Book of Samuel (chapter 11), prior to the king committing adultery and murder. Below the palace is a portal leading into a church on which a wall relief can be seen depicting the death of Bathsheba’s husband, the Hittite Uriah, whom David sent to certain death in battle. Beside the portal projects an apse on whose wall can be seen painted sculptures of Moses and Abraham as representatives of law.

The painting is divided into a dominant scene in the foreground and a secondary scene, subordinate to this, in the background. This background narrative is of the traditional pattern, that of painted church sculpture. Memling was not so much concerned with the biblical story - which may have served as justification of a nude figure - as with the translation of a biblical motif into a domestic setting in 15yh-century Flanders. Moreover, the upper left-hand corner has been added at a later date, probably in the 17th century. The original corner piece, now in the Chicago Art Institute, shows David giving a messenger a ring for Bathsheba.

The painting is the left panel of a triptych, the central panel being the Crucifixion, the right panel the Resurrection, all in the Budapest Museum. The dog and the frog in the foreground is a motif frequently occurring in the painting of Bruges.

Memling painted a slightly different version of this composition in 1481. The type can be interpreted iconographically as the merging of the ‘Vera Effigies’ and ‘Salvator Mundi’. It comprises a frontal portrayal of the face of Christ in a manner that had become standard in fifteenth-century art, having been established as early as the thirteenth century by a description contained in the so-called Letter of Lentulus. The best-known example of this theme was executed by Jan van Eyck. The figure is transformed by Memling into a Salvator Mundi giving his blessing, but without the attributes of his power. He does not hold a crossed orb in his hand or wear a coronet on his head, but is presented in the form of a portrait, as a human being standing in a window, his left hand resting on the frame. He is the counterpart of the Man of Sorrows, the suffering Christ, as depicted by Memling in Genoa. In fact, the dark blue-green background and dark brownish-purple robe render the latter a kind of agonised metamorphosis of the Pasadena Christ.

The immediate typological precursor of this presentation is the Master of Fl�malle’s Salvator Mundi (Philadelphia, John G. Johnson Collection) in which the fingers of the left hand are also just visible above the edge. Christ himself, the form of his robe and the position of the hand with which he gives his blessing are a development on the Jean de Braque triptych by Rogier van der Weyden. Although created at a much earlier date and less robust and more transparent in its execution, the Pasadena version is readily comparable with Memling’s Christ with musical angels in Antwerp. The rounded, almost sculptural features, the softly flowing hair of the beard and moustache, the fingers with their round tips in almost the same position of blessing, are all very similar. The underdrawing of the Pasadena work reveals that the hand making the blessing was designed on the panel itself. Several of its contours do not match the painted form at all, and the latter was itself corrected several times, even after the dark brown colour of the robe had already been painted around the fingers. The ring and little finger were originally drawn closer together, and the forefinger and index finger were more bent. Christ’s hand in Antwerp is more or less the finished result of the Pasadena version, though in a more elongated form.

This painting is a reprise with slight variations of the Pasadena Christ, which dates from 1478. The dark background of this painting will also have originally been bluish-green in colour and the robe is not dark brown but red. Although produced later, this version is typologically closest to Rogier van der Weyden’s prototype on the triptych of Jean de Braque (Paris, Louvre). The figure is thinner and more ascetic than the one in Pasadena. The face has the sunken cheeks of the Braque type, and the hand raised in blessing has more elongated fingers. It is positioned so that only the tip of the forefinger extends above the middle finger. The appearance of the painting is also related to the Vera Effigies of Dieric Bouts (Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen).

The work was not reported until 1937 and the original date 1481 on the frame has been overlooked until now. It is painted in trompe-l’oeil gilded numbers. The date 1480 on the Portrait of a Young Woman (Memlingmuseum, Bruges] and that on the Reins triptych are executed in precisely the same way.

The picture shows the central panel of a triptych which originally decorated the great organs of the church Santa Maria la real at Najera, in Castile. The panel represents the Blessing Christ surrounded by six singing angels. The side panels represent two other groups of musician angels accompanying the choir.

Christ stands before the whipping-post, his hands crossed in front of him and tied with a cord that also passes around his waist. It is not clear whether this also binds him to the post. A rod made of twigs and a scourge with a broken handle lie on the tiled floor on both the left and right, where they have been left behind symmetrically and in a cross shape by his tormentors. Another rod has been thrown carelessly to the ground to his immediate left and rear, while to the right we see another broken scourge. Memling also inserted part of the latter’s handle in the left foreground on top of the already painted floor. There are thus three examples of each instrument, which means that the flagellation presented here belongs to the type with three torturers, as in the scene in the Greverade triptych in L�beck. Christ’s mauve tunic has been thrown to the ground behind him. The background is kept dark. It is evident from the relief of this dark colour that a wide, moulded stone arch was originally painted here, located behind the pillar as a kind of rear porch of the dark torture-chamber. It is not clear whether this architectural motif has darkened so much that it can no longer be seen, or whether it was actually overpainted with the present dark ground by Memling himself. The form is comparable with that of the arch which surrounds the Man of Sorrows in Esztergom. The entire surface of Christ’s body is covered with droplets of blood that well up from pointed wounds. He is wearing the Crown of Thorns.

Although the image might appear familiar, this representation is rare, if not unique. Christ is, indeed, depicted as a kind of Ecce Homo, but he is shown at the point before he is dressed in the imitation king’s cloak, the cane is placed in his chained hands and he is exposed to the mockery of the mob. He is shown naked apart from a loin-cloth, after the Flagellation but nevertheless with the Crown of Thorns on his head. He is thus presented in a kind of compassionate conflation of the Flagellation and Ecce Homo themes: a Man of Sorrows with the arma Christi portrayed shortly before the Crucifixion. The slight asymmetry of the column, which stands a little to the left of centre, and of Christ’s feet, which are located somewhat to the right of the centre line, creates a visual balance between the figure and the architecture on a floor pattern that is nonetheless perfectly symmetrical. Memling applied a similar procedure on several occasions.

The painting was not discovered until late (exhibition Bruges 1958). It is an autonomous devotional work which has survived all but intact in its original frame. Its attribution to Memling cannot be doubted. The slim, elongated figure is comparable stylistically with later works such as the Stuttgart Bathsheba, the Basel St Jerome and the Greverade triptych. The somewhat rigid modelling and the simplified, direct brushwork also point in that direction.

The painting is the central panel of a triptych, the left panel being the Carrying the Cross, the right panel the Resurrection, all in the Budapest Museum. The triptych is related to Memling’s large altarpiece executed for the Cathedral of L�beck representing the same scenes of Christ’ Passion.

It is assumed that an early sixteenth-century Bruges master combined elements of a lost Memling triptych with Memling’s L�beck altarpiece to produce this triptych.

The painting is a copy after Hans Memling.

The composition shows a close-up of the Deposition. The body of Christ depicted to the knees, which is being taken down from the Cross, is supported by three men. The man on the far left is probably Nicodemus and the bald-headed man on the right Joseph of Arimathea. The St Andrew on the reverse came to light in 1959, which in itself indicates that the work must have been conceived as a rotating panel, probably the left wing of a Lamentation diptych. The right wing will have depicted the group with St John and the weeping women, as in Memling’s diptych with the Deposition and the Lamentation in the Capilla Real, Granada. The painting in Bruges is the only copy with a picture on the reverse. The lifelike St Andrew is seen in the arched opening of a window niche. He is shown half-length, like the figures on the front. Two small shields in the spandrels bear the coat-of-arms of the della Costa family. The donor was thus probably the well-known Genoese Andrea della Costa (d. 1542), who was collector-general to Maximilian of Austria and orator of the deanery in Bruges. He was married to Agnes Adornes, whose coat-of-arms and guardian saint were probably included on the right wing.

The Diptych of Jean de Cellier was painted for a herb and spice merchant married to Anna van de Woestyne, a niece of Lodewijk van Gruuthuse (Louis de Bruges). The work must have been painted after Anna’s death - some time after 1482, when the couple purchased a tomb in Our Lady’s Church - as Jan is shown alone in the right wing.

The left panel of the diptych represents the Betrothal of St Catherine of Alexandria, the right the donator with St John the Baptist.

The Diptych of Jean de Cellier was painted for a herb and spice merchant married to Anna van de Woestyne, a niece of Lodewijk van Gruuthuse (Louis de Bruges). The work must have been painted after Anna’s death - some time after 1482, when the couple purchased a tomb in Our Lady’s Church - as Jan is shown alone in the right wing.

The left panel of the diptych represents the Betrothal of St Catherine of Alexandria.

The right panel of the diptych represents the Donator with St John the Baptist.

The left panel shows the Virgin and Child, while the right is the portrait of the donor Maarten van Nieuwenhove, a nobleman in Bruges. This work dates from the same year as the Benedetto Portinari triptych and is closely related to it in terms of style and typology. With the exception of the example in Chicago, it is the only portrait diptych to survive intact.

In the Virgin of the left wing, the features of the Virgin in van der Weyden’s Columba Altarpiece can be seen, with her slightly tilted head and soft facial features almost frozen in gentle humility. In Memling’s picture the Virgin and Child seem more animated, their gestures more natural. Christ, depicted in a pose similar to the same figure in van der Weyden’s work, reaches eagerly for the apple held by his mother. This gesture expresses the acceptance of his later Passion, which was necessary to redeem humanity from original sin (symbolized by the apple).

This panel shows Memling’s mastery of a rich vocabulary of allusions in the Flemish tradition of a van Eyck. As in the Arnolfini Marriage, a convex mirror hangs on the wall behind the Virgin and captures the entire scene. We can see the nobleman at prayer and the Virgin at his side. His holy vision has become a reality through the painter’s art, which, in a metaphorical sense, is a witness to the event. The form of the diptych separates the levels of meaning: the sacred images of the Virgin and Child are on one side and a secular portrait of the donor on the other. However, these levels of meaning are embedded in a unified and domestic space which envelops both panels - a real room in the house of a prosperous nobleman. The divine sphere has been shown to enter the sphere of this Bruges nobleman’s everyday world.

The original frame states the name and age of the donor, together with the date. He is Maarten van Nieuwenhove, portrayed in 1487 when he was 23. He was born on 11 November 1463 to a prominent Bruges family, several members of which held important civic posts (burgomaster, councilor, municipal treasurer) or worked for Maximilian of Austria. Links with the latter were to cost Maarten’s brother Jan his head in 1488. Maarten was a councilor in 1492 and 1494, captain of the civic guard in 1495 and 1498 and burgomaster in 1497. He died on 16 August 1500, as recorded by his tombstone in the family chapel in the Church of Our Lady. He was evidently still unmarried at the time the painting was commissioned. His future bride, Margareta Haultain, was to outlive him by twenty years. His coat-of-arms and motto IL YA CAVSE are incorporated in the stained-glass window behind the Virgin. The window also features four medallions containing a vivid emblem that illustrates his family name: a hand sowing seeds over a garden of flowers (Nieuwenhove = new garden). Maarten’s patron saint, St Martin, is represented behind him, again in the form of a stained-glass window. The medallions showing St George and St Christopher to the Virgin’s right might be personally chosen protectors. The view through the window to the rear of the portrait appears to show the Minnewater bridge in Bruges.

Although the painting is not signed, Memling’s authorship has never been doubted.

The spatial conception of the work is one of the most carefully devised that Memling ever realised in the portrait genre. What we see as we look through the frame from the real world is supplemented by the reflection in the convex mirror behind the figure of the Virgin, which reveals the precise appearance of the space encompassed by the painting. It also tells us how the artist positioned his subjects in relation to one another, and where his own vantage point was located. The frames seem to have been conceived as the two front windows of a small rectangular room that is enclosed by two more windows at the back and to the right, and a blind wall on the left. The latter is visible in the mirror, as are the beams of the timber ceiling.

Each figure is seated before a window, and leans forward onto a continuous window-sill or parapet covered with an Oriental carpet. On one side of this rests the cushion on which the Christ Child sits, on the other, the man’s prayer-book. The reflection in the mirror shows him to be facing directly towards the Virgin, who sits squarely before the window. The three-quarter position in the right wing is thus the view of the man that the artist (and also the viewer) would have if he were to stand directly in front of the Virgin and turn his head to the right. The viewer is positioned as close to Mary as the portrayed man, but looks her straight in the face, while he sees her in profile. We can also see in the mirror that the man is kneeling and wearing a long cloak, and that the Virgin is sitting on a (stone ?) bench, with two little openwork arches. To her right is a chair on which another open. book rests on a blue cushion. Unlike its function in Van Eyck’s work, the mirror here is not merely a symbol of Mary’s purity; it also has an explanatory spatial purpose.

The left panel is in New york, the right in Rotterdam. Many commentators found it difficult to accept that these two panels were actually companion pieces until a plausible explanation for this double allegorical work was proposed. It was, however, evident that they belonged together in one way or another because of the matching dimensions and architectural settings.

The vanishing point for the perspective construction of both paintings is located on the line separating them. That means, taking account of Memling’s consistent logic in this respect, that they cannot have been intended as the wings of a triptych, but were conceived as continuous scenes, separated only by their frames. We can no longer determine whether the diptych was fixed or folding. The panels are very thin, which might indicate that they had a painted rear which was subsequently sawn off. The woman holds a carnation in her hand, which is a long-established symbol of marriage. The white horse, on which a grinning monkey sits, bends down to drink, while the brown horse turns its head towards the woman. The horse, which is often used in both art and literature as a symbol of love, appears here in a double role. The white one with the monkey - the symbol par excellence of sinfulness, lust and selfishness - is the bad lover who is concerned only with self-gratification (slaking its thirst), while the brown horse gazes faithfully and unselfishly at its mistress.

The physiognomy of the woman correspond with Memling’s anonymous female type, which is to be found in both saints and angels. This fact alone indicates the purely emblematic character of the representation. What is more, if this figure had had a male portrait as a companion piece it could not have appeared in a left wing. The young woman is dressed in the manner of the Burgundian Court in the 1470s with a high hennin or `steeple’ headdress and long train, which might place the allegory even more clearly in the realm of chivalry and courtly love.

The physiognomy of the woman correspond with Memling’s anonymous female type, which is to be found in both saints and angels. This fact alone indicates the purely emblematic character of the representation.

The left panel of the diptych represents the Deposition, while the right the Weeping Women.

There is an older variant of this composition, whose wings are now in a private collection and the Museu de Arte, São Paulo. Despite its ruinous state, it also seems to be autograph.

In terms of its iconography, the composition is a conflation of a Lamentation and a Deposition. By focusing in on the body as it is descended from the Cross, the scene loses its general anecdotal character and takes on instead a similar contemplative function to a Lamentation or Pietà on the ground. The panels are conceived as a spatial unit with a continuous landscape. The cropping of the figures along the boundary between the two panels must have been filled in and compensated for by the now missing frame. The overall effect is thus that of a realistic close-up with a devotional function. The body of Christ in the New York-São Paulo diptych is cut of above the knees and there are only two Holy Women in addition to Mary Magdalene. In the Granada version, Christ is shown to below his knees, his arms hanging over the shoulders of Joseph of Arimathea on the left and Nicodemus on the right, and there are three Holy Women present. There are further differences between the gestures, head movements and types. An instructive comparison can be made with a similar diptych on canvas, which is attributed to Hugo van der Goes. Careful comparison reveals that Memling drew upon Van der Goes particularly for the first diptych. There are also borrowings from the lost Deposition by the Master of Fl�malle, which was installed in St James’ Church in Bruges. Memling thus created a new type by merging the compositions of the Master of Fl�malle and Hugo van der Goes.

A number of correspondences, including dimensions, origins and inscriptions prove that the three fragments In Bucharest (the Standing Virgin and Child and the two panels with donors) belong together. They were cut down to matching size obviously before 1656. The Virgin, who is clearly standing up as she reaches the height of the column capitals and does not have the Child on her lap, has been cut in half. The donors, who are kneeling, have been trimmed at the top and bottom to more or less the same height. It is extremely difficult after so much time to determine why the painting was mutilated in this way. The darker colour to the man’s right, and above all the red drapery to the woman’s left, seem to be original, at least in part and are thus likely to be remnants of the patron saints who originally stood alongside the donors . The hypothesis that the three paintings originally belonged to a single fixed panel is strengthened by the half dowel-holes that are still to be seen on the inner edges of the portraits. The three panels are thus fragments of the original vertical planks of the painting, which were linked by internal dowel pegs. We ought, therefore, to imagine a composition similar to the Virgin with donor in Ottawa, but with an extra figure on the opposite side. If there was a little more space above the Virgin, the original panel must have measured roughly 100 x 100 cm.

The landscape behind the man is painted over a piece of wood inset at a later date. Similar triangular pieces have also been inserted to the left and right of the woman. Like the horizontal strip above the heads in both panels, these additions (to replace damaged or sawn-out sections?) were already present in 1656, when the panels were part of the collection of Leopold Wilhelm.

A number of correspondences, including dimensions, origins and inscriptions prove that the three fragments In Bucharest (the Standing Virgin and Child and the two panels with donors) belong together. They were cut down to matching size obviously before 1656. The Virgin, who is clearly standing up as she reaches the height of the column capitals and does not have the Child on her lap, has been cut in half. The donors, who are kneeling, have been trimmed at the top and bottom to more or less the same height. It is extremely difficult after so much time to determine why the painting was mutilated in this way. The darker colour to the man’s right, and above all the red drapery to the woman’s left, seem to be original, at least in part and are thus likely to be remnants of the patron saints who originally stood alongside the donors . The hypothesis that the three paintings originally belonged to a single fixed panel is strengthened by the half dowel-holes that are still to be seen on the inner edges of the portraits. The three panels are thus fragments of the original vertical planks of the painting, which were linked by internal dowel pegs. We ought, therefore, to imagine a composition similar to the Virgin with donor in Ottawa, but with an extra figure on the opposite side. If there was a little more space above the Virgin, the original panel must have measured roughly 100 x 100 cm.

The landscape behind the man is painted over a piece of wood inset at a later date. Similar triangular pieces have also been inserted to the left and right of the woman. Like the horizontal strip above the heads in both panels, these additions (to replace damaged or sawn-out sections?) were already present in 1656, when the panels were part of the collection of Leopold Wilhelm.

The still-life is on the back of a panel representing the portrait of a young man. The panel is the left wing of a triptych.

The reverse of the portrait is an exquisite still-life. A small Italian maiolica vase stands on an Oriental carpet in a niche. It holds a bouquet of lilies, irises and columbines, symbolising Mary’s virginity, her suffering and Christ’s birth and death. The vase also bears Christ’s monogram. This flower piece not only argues in favour of a central panel depicting a Virgin and Child, it must also be viewed as a kind of emblem of the donor’s personal Christian vocation.

The picture shows one of the panels of the Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation which is made up of three panels, all three of which are painted on both sides. This reversible painting would seem to have been intended for use as an aid to private meditation. When the panels are folded slightly inwards, the triptych will stand unsupported - for example, on a table. Its symbolism centres on the opposition between Good and Evil. To one side of the woman, representing vanity and lust, is an androgynous devil. This figure bears a premonitory sentence.

Memling produced three versions of the Lamentation theme - two triptychs in Rotterdam and Bruges, known as the Kaufmann and the Reins triptych respectively, and this panel in Rome. There is nothing to suggest that this work ever had wings. Whereas the dimensions of the Lamentation in the Reins triptych are notably smaller, the central panel of the Kaufmann triptych is precisely the same size as the Rome Lamentation. Nevertheless, a different type was used in the latter. A donor is present and the Virgin embraces the body of Christ. Memling was reaching directly back here to a composition by Rogier van der Weyden, several variations of which also survive. The version known from copies in Madrid (Prado) and Berlin (Staatliche Museen) served as the model for the present work. The poses adopted by the Virgin and St John are virtually the same. The figure of Mary Magdalene has been inserted. The crosses of the two thieves in the background represent an almost literal correspondence with another work copied from Van der Weyden, namely an early-sixteenth-century copy (Strasbourg, Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, destroyed by fire) after a lost Deposition. It is not possible, however, to determine whether this motif appeared in the original Deposition, or came from yet another work.

Attempts have been made to link the donor figure with that in the Bucharest wing and to identify it as the perfect likeness of Willem Moreel. The man in Bucharest certainly cannot be Willem Moreel, because his wife does not resemble Barbara van Vlaenderberch and only one son is present. If the donor in Rome is, indeed, the same as the one in Bucharest, then he must be younger in the Rome painting (no wife or child) - a point which does not conflict with his features.

After weighing and jjudgment, the majority of the resurrected are herded towards hell by black, hybrid, zoomorphic demons, who carry a variety of weapons and red-hot instruments of torture. Hell takes the form of a volcanic, mountainous region.

Christ appears in evangelical guise seated on a rainbow, his feet resting on a gleaming golden globe, surrounded by the twelve apostles and the intercessors Mary and John the Baptist. They are all pictured on a cloud that continues left to the gates of paradise and right to the mouth of hell. The traditional angels with the instruments of the Passion hover in pairs above this divine assembly, while the four angels blowing their apocalyptic trumpets float somewhat randomly above the earth, one of them even appearing high up in the clouds of the right wing. The lily of mercy and the red-hot sword of justice on either side of Christ’s head correspond symbolically with the upward gesture of blessing made by his right hand, and the downward one by his left.

The rainbow separates the two worlds and their different orders; the ethereal golden space of God’s Kingdom appears at the top, while the earth, represented as a wide plain bordered in the distance by a chain of mountains, is shown at the bottom. This will be the valley of Josaphat, which, according to the apocryphal authors (Honorius of Autun, James of Voragine) would be the site of the Last Judgment. The time of day is fixed by the dark blue-green night sky.

The figure of St Michael stands on the earth directly below Christ, on the dividing line between the green soil to the left and the barren brown plain to the right. Holding the scales in his right hand, he uses the crosier in his left to prick the flesh of the damned soul, as if to prod him towards the mouth of hell.

The closed altarpiece shows the donor and his wife kneeling in prayer, each before a niche containing respectively a statue of the Virgin and Child and St Michael battling with demons. Their escutcheons are mounted on the polygonal base of the niches. These were identified as belonging to the Florentines Angelo di Jacopo Tani (1415-1492) and Caterina di Francesco Tanagli (1446-1492). Tani was an agent of the Medici bank in Bruges in 1450, before becoming its manager in 1455. He was ousted by Tommaso Portinari in 1465. Tani married in Florence in 1466, and his wife bore a daughter (one of several) on 8 June 1471. He drew up his will on 12 December 1467, the same month as he was sent back north to save the London branch from bankruptcy. The holy figures represented here evidently relate first and foremost to the devotion of the donors. The coats-of-arms were originally reversed - in other words, the man’s arms appeared in the woman’s panel, and vice versa.

Before departing for London in December 1467, Tani founded a chapel dedicated to St Michael at his employer’s church in Fiesole and drew up his will. He probably also made funeral arrangements in the customary manner. He will then have required an altarpiece, which he ordered from Memling some time after the end of 1467 during his stay in the north. The painting was, therefore, largely executed during his stay in London between 1467 and 1469, from where he could monitor its progress. The iconography of the altarpiece is clarified by its destination. St Michael has been selected here first and foremost as the saint to whom the chapel was dedicated, and only in the second place as Tani’s patron. This also explains the absence of the woman’s patron. Taken together, the grisailles depict the victory of St Michael over Satan, who was threatening the Virgin and Christ Child.

The picture shows a detail of the left wing.

The picture shows a detail of the left wing. Several of the male redeemed souls have clearly personalised features, suggesting that acquaintances of the donor had their portraits included.

The picture shows a detail of the left wing: musician angels play on the Gothic balcony.

The picture shows a detail of the left wing.

Christ appears in evangelical guise seated on a rainbow, his feet resting on a gleaming golden globe, surrounded by the twelve apostles and the intercessors Mary and John the Baptist. They are all pictured on a cloud that continues left to the gates of paradise and right to the mouth of hell. The traditional angels with the instruments of the Passion hover in pairs above this divine assembly, while the four angels blowing their apocalyptic trumpets float somewhat randomly above the earth, one of them even appearing high up in the clouds of the right wing. The lily of mercy and the red-hot sword of justice on either side of Christ’s head correspond symbolically with the upward gesture of blessing made by his right hand, and the downward one by his left.

The detail of the central panel represents a group of Apostles at the left hand of Christ.

The figure of St Michael stands on the earth directly below Christ, on the dividing line between the green soil to the left and the barren brown plain to the right. He wears a suit of armour in the same gleaming golden material as the globe on which Christ’s feet rest. A red brocade cope hangs from his shoulders. His wings end in peacock feathers. Holding the scales in his right hand, he uses the crosier in his left to prick the flesh of the damned soul, as if to prod him towards the mouth of hell. Around him, as far as the eye can see, the dead rise up from their graves.

The man in the scale is a portrait, his features closely resembling those of Tommaso Portinari. This head is an early addition (identified as such as far back as 1781).

The care and planning expended not only on the composition, but also on the representation of natural phenomena like foreshortening, light and reflection, are striking, as in the rest of Memling’s oeuvre. St Michael’s curved breastplate and the globe reflect the unfolding events with hallucinatory precision (only here do we see clearly how the Romanesque towers loom up behind the Gothic heavenly gates). The size of the figures reduces dizzyingly depending on how close or distant they are. The colours of the rainbow are accurately reproduced.

The picture shows a detail of the lower part of the central panel.

The picture shows a detail of the lower part of the central panel.

The picture shows a detail of the lower part of the central panel.

The picture shows a detail of the right wing representing the Hell.

The picture shows a detail of the right wing representing the Hell.

The picture shows a detail of the right wing representing the Hell.

The picture shows the wife of the donor, Caterina di Francesco Tanagli (1446-1492) from the right wing of the closed altarpiece.

On the left, St Peter leads the small band of righteous souls up a crystal staircase to the gates of paradise. Before making their entrance, they are dressed by angels and the attributes of their rank during life are restored: the procession is headed by pope, cardinal and bishop. No racial distinction is made: one black figure appears amongst the righteous and one amongst the damned. The common antithetical symbolism of the new and old dispensations is present here in the shape of a Gothic portal, which conceals two Romanesque towers. Part of this architecture is visible on the extreme right, above the gablet, while red marble columns of the Romanesque type can be glimpsed though the open doorway. Musician angels play on the Gothic balconies. The sculptural scheme of the portal is apocalyptic, with the creation of Eve featuring in the gablet above. The form of the architecture and sculpture thus unites the beginning and end of human history. The construction as a whole represents the New Jerusalem that descends (on the clouds) from heaven (Rev. 3:12).

Several of the male redeemed souls have clearly personalised features, as remarked by several authors, suggesting that acquaintances of the donor had their portraits included. That this is indeed the case is supported by the fact that no such figures appear amongst the damned.

Although known to be an early work, this triptych is Memling’s most monumental composition and one of his plastically most accomplished. A perfectly symmetrical, semi-circular line of bodies runs through the continuous space of all three panels, with the calm upward movement of the Reception of the Righteous into Heaven balanced by the turbulent Casting of the Damned into Hell on the opposite side.

Although it was one of Memling’s first creations in Bruges, it already displays impressive mastery. The work was commissioned by Angelo Tani (1415-1492), the Florentine manager of the Medici bank in Bruges, for the altar of his newly founded chapel in the church of the Badia Fiesolana in Florence. The commission coincided with Tani’s wedding in 1466 to Caterina Tanagli, with whom he is portrayed on the closed wings. The painting was completed before the birth of the couple’s first daughter in 1471, and was dispatched to Porto Pisano via Southampton in 1473. But while the ship was still in Zealand waters, it was intercepted by a Polish warship operating on behalf of the Hanseatic League. The League was engaged at the time in a boycott of trade with England, the interim destination of the vessel carrying the altarpiece. The painting was taken to Danzig (Gdansk), where it was to remain.

The composition is a reformulation of Van der Weyden’s Beaune altarpiece, with a number of noteworthy quotations and differences. Rogier’s extremely wide, layered and hieratical image has been reduced, made narrower and clarified by diminishing the disproportionate relationship between the divine and earthly spheres. The central, monumental figures remain Christ and St Michael with the scales, and the bank of cloud is also paraphrased. The archangel dressed as a priest has, however, been transformed into a soldier. The Christ figure is as good as a copy - a remarkable and unique occurrence in Memling’s oeuvre. If we throw in the strongly Rogierian style of the apostles’ heads, it is almost impossible not to conclude that Memling saw the Beaune altarpiece with his own eyes.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem K 626: Dies irae

His almost obsessional concern for realistic detail did not prevent Memling from using allegory and symbol in his work. In one of his early works, the Last Judgment Triptych, the damned and the elect are linked together to form a garland of bodies, some tortured, some beatific, in descending and rising forms that span the entire composition. Christ is seated on a circular rainbow which separates the world above from the world below, his feet resting on a golden globe. To either side of his head are the lily of mercy and the blazing sword of justice.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):

Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem, Dies irae (excerpt)

His almost obsessional concern for realistic detail did not prevent Memling from using allegory and symbol in his work. In one of his early works, the Last Judgment Triptych, the damned and the elect are linked together to form a garland of bodies, some tortured, some beatific, in descending and rising forms that span the entire composition. Christ is seated on a circular rainbow which separates the world above from the world below, his feet resting on a golden globe. To either side of his head are the lily of mercy and the blazing sword of justice.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 10 minutes):

Giuseppe Verdi: Requiem, Dies irae (excerpt)

Artist of German origin, active in Bruxelles and Bruges during the second half of 15th century, Memling often painted sacred scenes with a sense of serene harmony and decorative elegance. In this work splendour of the colours dominates the foreground, with the Madonna’s throne framed in an arch and adorned with festoons of leaves, fruit and flowers held by putti: a set of motifs that clearly reveal the artist’s attention to Italian models of Venetian art, while peculiarly Flemish is the natural landscape on the background.

The small size of the panel suggests that it was made for private devotion, perhaps commissioned by one of the inhabitants of the northern European castle in the background.

The Madonna is portrayed with a balanced, placid, gentle demeanour. The landscape is perfect in its delicacy, and the character of the work is produced by the sense of elegiac peace, by an extraordinary compositional balance, and by the almost timeless and enchanted atmosphere.

Although it is not certain that Memling visited Italy and studied Italian art there, he certainly knew Italian works and borrowed from them, too. In a number of panels depicting his favourite theme, the Madonna and Child enthroned with angels, such as the panel in Washington, the motif of arch, known from the paintings of Rogier van der Weyden, appears, but it has been Italianized. In place of the intricate Gothic archivolts with narratives that Rogier painted, a heavier and more classical arch appears with Italian putti often holding garlands so familiar in Renaissance art.

Thanks to a late-fifteenth-century copy (with the addition of a background landscape) that has survived intact in the Mus�e des Beaux-Arts, Strasbourg, we know for certain that this Man of Sorrows originally had a praying Virgin as its companion piece. A number of separate copies of the latter also survive. The best example in the series is to be found in the Uffizi in Florence. All the copies exhibit a similarly hard sculptural style that cannot have derived from the lost Memling painting. Until fairly recently, the Christ figure, too, was thought merely to have survived in copies.

It was not until the Genoa panel came to attention at the 1947 exhibition in Florence that it was accepted by most art-historians as a Memling of high quality. The work does, indeed, exhibit the highly polished finish, anatomical definition and soft lighting of Memling’s portraits. Christ wears a dark, purple-brown robe, and turns sorrowfully towards his mother, in the original right wing, to show his wounds. The droplets of blood, mixed with sweat, are rendered in a highly refined, transparent manner. Similar portrayals, albeit more frontal, are to be found in the circle of Dieric Bouts, especially in the work of Albert Bouts, where the type probably first arose. Memling’s version is one of the most ‘human’ interpretations, because it presents Christ not as a terrible emblem of the Passion (with the king’s cloak or cane from immediately after the Flagellation and the Crowning with Thorns), but as a sorrowful man who still bears the marks of his torture.

The Man of Sorrows is shown half-length against a heavily darkened, greenish-blue background. His figure cuts across a grey, moulded stone frame painted in trompe-l’oeil, which gives it the appearance of emerging from the painting three-dimensionally. This is an established illusionistic effect already used by Van Eyck for his niche figures (Annunciation, Madrid, Fundaci�n Thyssen-Bornemisza) but which was first applied to living figures by Memling in the Portinari portraits in New York. The devotional type of the suffering Christ who displays the wounds inflicted by his death on the Cross in order directly to engage the compassion of the believer is a familiar one in fifteenth-century Northern European art. The Man of Sorrows with the angels of the Last Judgment (1444-46) by Petrus Christus (Birmingham, City Art Gallery) is a direct precursor. Memling developed several other variations on this traditional typological theme.

This painting is the pendant of the portrait of the sitter’s husband, Tommaso Portinari. Both paintings probably belonged to a triptych as the side wings.

It was Memling’s clever innovation to place the trompe-l’oeil frame not around but behind the sitter, which caused the sitter to be projected into the viewer’s space.

The most widely accepted tendency at present is to attribute the work to Hans Memling, and this painting of the Uffizi would constitute the best of the many later versions conserved in other museums. For a long time, however, it was attributed to D�rer and to Joos van Cleve. It probably formed part of a diptych portraying the Mater Dolorosa on one panel and Christ crowned with thorns on the other. (This panel could be the Man of Sorrow in Genoa.)

The composition of this little work is clearly a reprise of the central panel of the Bladelin triptych (Berlin, Staatliche Museen) by Van der Weyden. It has, however, been simplified and the proportions of the figures with respect to the architecture made more natural. The angels have been omitted and the stable transformed into a realistic architectural fragment, according to Memling’s custom, with a spatial function that transcends the field of view of the painting. All the typological and iconographical ingredients of the earlier example are otherwise present. We know that this presentation of Mary, dressed in white and suddenly and painlessly praying to her new-born Child, derives from the ‘Revelationes’ of St Bridget of Sweden (fourteenth century). The way Joseph, holding his candle, is overwhelmed by the divine light also derives from that source, as does the pillar on the left which Mary saw during the birth and which symbolises Christ’s flagellation. Memling also retains in his composition the cellar entrance at the front, which might be an allusion to the cave in Bethlehem where Christ was born.

It is generally accepted that the painting should be ascribed to Memling and dated to around 1470. The figures do indeed retain the rather stocky frame and rounded physiognomy of the earliest works. Mary is identical to the Ottawa Virgin, which dates from 1472. The little painting also closely resembles the Nativity in the left wing of the Prado triptych in terms of style. A date of around 1470-72 would thus appear likely.

The painting, in all probability, have been the central panel of a small triptych with donor wings on either side, or possibly an iconography that was also inspired by the Bladelin triptych. It must have been located in or around Bruges, because it was copied towards the end of the fifteenth century in a small tondo located in St John’s Hospital in Damme.

The painting is in its original frame.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 16 minutes):

Arcangelo Corelli: Concerto grosso in g minor op. 6 No. 8 (Christmas Concerto)

The composition is a large-scale variant of the left wing of the Floreins triptych. So detailed are the figures in their execution and so precisely do the architecture and the landscape match Memling’s style that an unknown work by the master must lie at its basis. After all, it is difficult to believe that a follower would be capable of producing such a penetrating, complex and monumental variant in the master’s pure style of an existing small composition. The general pictorial treatment is harder and more contrasting than we are accustomed to in autograph works, and leans more towards the Master of the Legend of St Lucy. If it is indeed by that master, then it is his technically most accomplished work. It might also be based on a design provided by Memling which was executed by another painter (in his workshop?). The painting would appear at any rate to date from the final quarter of the fifteenth century. It was unknown until relatively recently.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 13 minutes):

Henri Dumont: Magnificat

International recognition of Memling’s brilliance resulted around the end of 1480s in an important German commission, the last one recorded. The Passion triptych was painted on behalf of Heinrich Greverade or his brother Adolf (or both) for their chapel in L�beck Cathedral. Heinrich was a merchant who represented the interests of the Hansa from the Oosterlingenhuis in Bruges. His brother became the master of L�beck Cathedral in 1494. The donor shown in the altarpiece is probably Adolf, whose will made the foundation possible. For a variety of reasons, the chapel was not inaugurated until 1504, but the altarpiece dates from 149I and together with the Last Judgment, the St John altarpiece and the N�jera panels it is one of the biggest works painted by Memling.

It is a triptych with double wings. When open the Carrying the Cross (left wing), the Crucifixion (central panel) and the Resurrection (right wing) can be seen. In its first closed position, the four saints to whom the altar was dedicated are visible across the full width of the triptych. The actual exterior, showing an Annunciation in grisaille, is only revealed when the wings are closed a second time. This structure was not customary in the Low Countries and was probably inspired by German, especially L�beck, examples.

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Guillaume Dufay: Hymn for Easter

The right side of he Passion Altarpiece of the Family Greverade in the first closed position is shown in the original frame. The panels represent Sts Jerome and Egidius.

The picture shows a detail of the central panel.

The left side of the Passion Altarpiece of the Family Greverade in the first closed position is shown in the original frame. The panels represent Sts Blasius and John the Baptist.

The left wing of the Passion Altarpiece of the Family Greverade depicts Christ Carrying the Cross.

The right wing of the Passion Altarpiece of the Family Greverade depicts the Resurrection.

In the Triptych of Benedetto Portinari the adoration of the Virgin takes place in an open loggia. Benedetto’s patron saint Benedict, appears in the left wing. The wings are known to have originated in the hospice of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence, which was founded by the Portinari family. The identification of the subject as Tommaso Portinari’s nephew has not been proven, but is probable. His motto DE BONO IN MELIVS appears on the rear of the portrait in a banderole wrapped around an oak stump from which a new twig springs. This is the only devotional triptych to survive intact and it suggests that the triptychs showing a husband and wife were of the same type - with three evenly sized panels folding shut over one another like a box, leaving the coat-of-arms or motto visible on the outside.

The central panel of the triptych depicts the Virgin and Child in a landscape. The left wing represents St Benedict, the patron saint of the donor, while the right wing is the portrait of the donor, Benedetto di Tommaso Portinari. Both wings are in the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence.

The left wing of the triptych represents St Benedict, the patron saint of the donor, Benedetto di Tommaso Portinari. The right wing, also in the Uffizi, represents the donor. The central panel, now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, depicts the Virgin and Child in a landscape.

The right wing of the triptych represents the donor, Benedetto di Tommaso Portinari. The left wing, also in the Uffizi, represents his patron saint St Benedict. The central panel, now in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, depicts the Virgin and Child in a landscape.

An almost equally large version of this portrait is in the Mus�e Cond�, Chantilly. The man is depicted shoulder-length against a plain dark green background, behind a stone sill, on which his right hand rests. The chain of the Order of the Golden Fleece hangs around his neck. The identification is based on the motto and on older copies bearing the name of the subject.

Probably born in about 1430, Anthony of Burgundy was a bastard son of Philip the Good and Jeanne de Presles. He was knighted in 1452 and admitted to the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1456. Both portraits are clearly based on a single prototype, whose style and conception indicate that it must have been painted by Memling. Although other opinions existed in the past, there is now a broad consensus to this effect. The Chantilly version features powerful and contrasting modelling and might have been produced before the end of the fifteenth century. The Dresden copy is weaker and might not have been executed until some time in the sixteenth century. The reverse is also fairly heavily damaged. Nevertheless, it shows the same inscriptions. It is usually the Chantilly version, therefore, which is referred to when seeking to evoke the original.

In view of the costume and age of the subject, the original work must have been painted in around 1467-70, and will thus have belonged to Memling’s earliest known portraits.

Only the pale pink face of the man, who is dressed in a reddish-brown tabard with a grey fur collar, stands out from the uniform, blue-green ground. All that we see of his hands, clasped in prayer in the left corner, are the long, calligraphically painted fingers. He wears two rings on his ring finger - one with a blue stone and another with his coat-of-arms. The latter appears again on the left of the original, brown and black marbleised frame. A trompe-l’oeil inscription, seemingly comprising inlaid gilded metal lettering, appears at the top and bottom of the frame. It tells us that the portrait was painted in 1472 when the man was 47 years old.

This is the earliest dated portrait by Memling and serves as a crucial milestone for the dating of other portraits from this period, including the Moreel portraits and the donors in the Last Judgment [Gdansk]. The modelling of all these portraits is highly simplified and all the subjects have long, tapering fingers with oval nails.

The subject was positively identified as Gilles Joye (1424-1483) on the basis of an old inscription on the reverse and the coat-of-arms. Joye began his career as a canon in the chapter of Our Lady in Cleves (1453-1460), before taking a similar position at St Donatian’s in Bruges (after 1463). He later became pastor at the Oude Kerk in Delft (1465- 1469), after which he was made clerk and Kapellmeister of Philip the Good (1462- 1469). He enjoyed some fame as a composer and settled in Bruges in the early 1450s. Despite the priest’s pious demeanor, church records suggest a more colorful personality - he was reprimanded for brawling, using offensive language, and living with a woman.

It is unlikely that the portrait ever belonged to a diptych, because there are no traces of hinges on the still intact frame (although this was assumed to be the case by some scholars). This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that the sitter’s coat-of-arms appears on the front and not on the reverse. The painting will ultimately have been commissioned to adorn his tomb in the sacristy of St Donatian’s Church, during a period of his life when he was afflicted by illness. Perhaps the portrait was installed there immediately.

This portrait represents the renowned composer Jacob Obrecht. The artist and the subject was identified on the basis of a number of correspondences, including the year, the man’s age, the inscription with his name, the fact that he is attired as a priest, and the very high quality of the painting, which suggests an artist of a stature to match the composer’s own. Jacob Obrecht, or Hobrecht as he is generally called in the sources, earned international fame during his lifetime. This is the first portrait of him to come to light. Obrecht was the son of the Ghent city trumpeter Willem Hobrecht. If he was 38 in 1496 (as written on the frame), he must have been born in 1458. The composer Obrecht was appointed choirmaster at Cambrai Cathedral in 1484. Following his dismissal for mismanagement, he was given the corresponding post (succentor) at St Donatian’s in Bruges. He was granted six months leave in 1487 to go and work at the court of Ferrara, at the request of Duke Ercole I d’Este. He was subsequently connected with Our Lady’s in Antwerp between 1492 and 1496, before being reappointed in Bruges on 31 December 1498. He travelled to the court of Ferrara for a second time in 1504, where he died of plague in 1505.

Jacob Obrecht has longish chestnut-brown hair, fairly robust features, and wears a transparent surplice over a brownish toga. The dark green collar with black lining is folded under the surplice on one side, revealing the black collar of the laced-up waistcoat beneath. He has a grey fur almuce about his left wrist, the standard attribute of the canons of a chapter church. He is shown in three-quarter view against a light blue-green background. His name is written in gold, calligraphic letters on either side of his head: Ja[cob] Hobrecht. The reverse features a standing female figure in grisaille, wearing a long dress, and reading from an open book which she holds at waist height. The sitter will originally have been looking towards the figure of a saint or a religious scene. Hinge-marks on the right-hand side of the frame confirm this beyond doubt. It is not certain, however, whether this was the painter’s original intention.

The date 1496 (two years after Memling’s death) appearing on the frame must refer to the later installation or completion by another artist of a diptych or triptych left unfinished. The later addition of the grisaille might also be an indication that the painting was finished after Memling’s death.

The man is portrayed almost frontally and does not quite look us in the eye. His curly hair looks Italian. Over his red jacket he wears a black jerkin or tabard with grey lining. On a fourfold golden neck-chain hangs a cross-shaped jewel with precious stones and pearls. His hands rest on the edge of the painting, as if on the lowest ridge of the frame which has now disappeared. His coat-of-arms is on the reverse.

Jacques of Savoy, Count of Romont and Lord of Vaud from 1460 until his death in 1487, became a knight of the Golden Fleece on 30 April 1478. He was lieutenant-general under Charles the Bold and survived the defeat at Nancy in 1477. From here he fled to the Netherlands and entered the service of Mary of Burgundy and Maximilian of Austria. The fact that he is portrayed here without the chain of the order (also missing on the coat-of-arms) indicates that the painting must have been executed prior to 1478.

The work was identified in the museum catalogue of 1901 as a copy of a lost portrait by Memling. The pose, landscape, physiognomy of the fingers and the stippled foliage are characteristic. The hard modelling, lacking in nuance, and the absence of detail suggest a minor artist along the lines of the Bruges Master of the Legend of St Lucy.

The portrait is set against a dark blue-green ground. The background colour might originally have been brighter, as in the Portrait of a man with an arrow in Washington, with which this work can also be best compared in terms of style, conception and format. His half-open jacket has a knotted cord at the collar, in which gold thread is interwoven. It is finished by two flat, gold ends decorated with pearls. The tips of his forefinger and middle finger are pushed beneath the left jacket lapel, level with the cord. One can wonder whether the cord might have had some kind of allusive meaning. The unusual gesture, in which the fingers press its ends as if it were an attribute, is, indeed, unique in Memling’s body of portraits. The fact that the man is facing to the left and is not shown in prayer, indicates that the portrait is autonomous.

As a portraitist, Memling was highly esteemed by the well-to-do families of Bruges. He knew how to arrange his sitters, ennobling their demeanour, idealizing their features and softening their expression. This small oil painting forms part of a series of delightful portraits kept at the Uffizi.

The tightly framed composition of this portrait makes it one of the most compact images ever painted by Memling. The solid head occupies virtually the entire width of the painting, with more than half of the shoulders and hands cut off the edge. The sensation of extreme proximity is exceptionally strong. The viewpoint is so low that the flat landscape, with a little church in the distance, can barely be discerned above the subject’s shoulders, while his head stands out monumentally against the sky. The broadly drawn, wispy clouds appear to be a later addition. The man wears a dark jacket lined with white fur, flecked with brown, and an asymmetrical collar over a red waistcoat. The wider right lapel is folded over, and if fastened would reach high above its counterpart. A small crucifix set with pearls hangs from a golden chain, half beneath and half on top of the collar. The young man in London’s National Gallery has a similar piece of jewellery, which he wears in the same way. It must have been a common ornament, because a version of it also appears in the Bruges Portrait of a young woman and in the allegorical figure of a girl in New York. The man’s devotion is evidently directed towards a lost representation, probably of the Virgin and Child.

When closed, this diptych would have displayed the coat-of-arms that is still to be found on the reverse. The man probably belonged to the Lespinette family (Franche-Comt�). Since its auction (as a work by Antonello da Messina) in 1894, the painting has been accepted as a Memling. It is generally compared with his portraits from the 1480s, and shows a particular similarity in its modelling to the Bruges Portrait of a young woman of 1480.

It is understandable that some people should have been inclined to attribute this admirable portrait to Antonello, such is its precision and assurance of drawing and modelling of the face; but in the features, which are as though engraved, and the pointed steeple visible in the background, give a Flemish character of this picture.

The youthful sitter of this portrait wears a purple tunic edged with fur over a doublet with a high collar. Two rings set with rubies are worn on the middle joint of his right “ring” finger. Shown as though standing behind a parapet in a simple room pierced by a lateral loggia embellished with veined marble columns, he appears to be in his twenties and must have been a member of the sizable Florentine community in Bruges (a considerable part of Memling’s surviving portraits were commissioned by Italians).

Florentine painters admired the astonishing quality of verisimilitude achieved by Flemish painters and they were inspired by Flemish models.

Apart from the Portrait of a Man in Florence, this is the only Memling portrait in which the subject looks directly at the viewer. The two works share other features too: the buttoned-up black tunic without fur edging; the shirt folded over the collar; the short black bonnet worn over dark, curly hair; the composition of the landscape; and the serrated edges of the clouds in the sky. They have thus been compared repeatedly. The man holds a coin in his left hand, which persuaded earlier authors to identify him as a medallist. It was suggested that the sitter was Niccolò di Forzore Spinelli, who died in Lyons, where the painting was purchased in the early nineteenth century. Others believed him to be Giovanni de Candida, but an authenticated portrait of Candida does not resemble the sitter of this work. The different authors were, however, at least able to agree that he was an Italian, a fact supported, in their view, by his appearance and the solitary palm tree in the landscape. The tree and the coin might well have an emblematic function, but there is no reason to interpret the former as a symbol of the subject’s nationality.

The coin has been identified as a sestertius, struck in Lyons under Emperor Nero. The coin and the palm tree were link with the possible name of the subject: Nero (Neri, del Nero, Nerone, de Niro, etc.) and Palma (Palmieri) are common Italian forenames and surnames. Pictograms were popular motifs at the time, especially in Italian humanist circles. A third element, comprises the laurel leaves that appear at the bottom, just above the edge, which the man might be holding in his concealed right hand. This is another commonly used emblem in Italy, where it appears in coats-of-arms or denotes a name (Lorenzo, Allori). It is entirely possible, therefore, that the man wished his full name (three parts, including his father’s name) to be incorporated in the portrait after the Italian fashion.

The work was originally identified as an Antonello da Messina, and even as his self-portrait. The portrait was first attributed to Memling in 1871, and it was maintained in the catalogue of the Hans Memling exhibition held in the Groeningemuseum, Bruges, in 1994. The present commentary is based on this catalogue edited by Dirk De Vos. The painting is usually dated to the very beginning of the artist’s career. In view of the clothing and style, this portrait was certainly not painted before 1480.

However, at present the painting is displayed at the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp as the portrait of Bernardo Bembo painted by Antonello da Messina in 1471-74.

The outline of this portrait is unclear due to the severe darkening of the background, which was originally a bright blue-green in colour. The man wears a black bonnet with a decorative pin in its upturned brim, depicting a Virgin on a crescent moon. This could be a reference to personal devotion or to membership of a religious confraternity. His right hand rests on the edge of the painting on the far left. The fingertips were, in fact, originally cut off slightly by the edge. He holds an arrow between his thumb and forefinger, which is probably intended as a reference to his office or rank in an archers’ guild.

The vision of man and the world free from the transcendental conception of the Middle Ages achieved on the threshold of the fifteenth century in Tuscany through the laws of linear perspective, was reached almost at the same time in Flanders in an empirical fashion through the continuous lyrical modulation of light which, embracing form and space in a unified synthesis, brings out the natural value and weight of colours. This is the background to the intimate, contemplative, natural quality of the painting of Hans Memling, an excellent example of which is the ‘Portrait of a Young Man’. The light gently explores the features of the human face and of landscape and evokes each detail with incomparable naturalness.

This portrait is a typical example of the genre and its stage of development within late 15th-century Netherlandish painting. While the variegated marble pillar in the background indicates a rather grander setting than, for example, the architecture of Robert Campin, the location in fact plays only a secondary role. Perspective details are lacking, and the distance between the front edge of the picture and the parapet draped with the carpet behind appears to be extremely short. The half length figure of the genteel young man is correspondingly lacking in physical depth; although seen in a three-quarter view which incorporates the room beyond, the positioning of his hands and the elements of his costume convert three-dimensional space into two-dimensional plane. In place of powerful sculptural volumes and a balancing of horizontal and vertical values, we find here an emphasis upon the perpendicular and a precise observation of detail, both in the figure and the clothing, as evidenced by the differentiated modelling of the eyes, the sensitive, slightly asymmetrical drawing of the lips, and above all by the almost photographic rendering of the fingers. Memling displays the same painstaking care in his treatment of the richly trimmed sleeves.

In providing a glimpse of landscape in the right-hand corner, Memling obeys a convention which was common in early Renaissance portraiture and which would remain popular even into the 16th-century. In keeping our view into the outdoors narrow, he neither distracts our attention from the sitter nor influences the mood of the scene.

The panel is the left wing of a triptych. We have to assume that the young man is worshipping a holy figure, probably a Virgin and Child, located in the middle of the loggia. In view of his position on the left, there must have been a young woman in the right wing of what will have been a folding devotional triptych with matching panels of the classic type.

On the back of the a panel a still-life can be found.

This little painting is no larger than a postcard and, unlike most of Memling’s portraits, has a rounded top. This shape only became customary by the end of the fifteenth and above all in the sixteenth century. It probably formed a diptych with a Virgin on the left-hand side. The hypothesis linking this work with the Man of Sorrows in Esztergom is difficult to bear out because of the difference in proportions. There is some similarity in type and treatment with the 1487 portrait of Benedetto Portinari. This work is unlikely to have been painted earlier, at any rate - a fact suggested also by the curved shape.

The portrait of this young man is a textbook example of the genre as developed by Memling. He is shown in three-quarter pose, to just beneath his shoulders. Pictured before a park-like landscape, his right hand resting on the edge of the painting in the left corner, his gaze is fixed on the horizon. The modelling of his features is evened out by the diffuse frontal lighting. His costume is sober and dark: the coat appears to be black but might actually be darkened purple-brown. The black collar that sticks out at the top is part of his waistcoat. The hairstyle would appear Italian, although no concrete evidence can be provided to support this.

Originally purchased as an Antonello da Messina, the painting has been definitively ascribed to Memling since 1896.

With the exception of his devotional works, this painting is the only Memling portrait of an individual woman to have survived. At the same time, it functions as an exemplar of the well-to-do Flemish townswoman of the final decades of the fifteenth century. Her almost nun-like appearance, with her pale face and severely swept-back hair, starched, transparent headdress and dark clothes, is ornamented only by an olive-green belt, worn high, a wine-red chest-piece, and several rings and a necklace studded with precious stones. She poses in devout reverie against a darker void, her hands clasped primly together. The background is barely distinguishable now from her close-fitting, dark purple dress because its original bluish-green colour has darkened. The frame that surrounds her is marbled dark brown, with the date painted onto the imitation stone in the Eyckian manner, as if made up of inlaid gold or yellow metal letters.

An earlier example of this type of portrait, with the same background, frame and date is the Portrait of Gilles Joye, dating from 1472. The Portrait ofJacob Obrecht also has this type of marbling on its frame. The portrait is somewhat disfigured by a painted metal cartouche top left and a banderole with an inscription on the frame at the bottom, which identify the woman as the Sibyl of Persia (SIBYLLA SAMBETHA QUAE / EST PERSICA). Judging from the style, these were added in the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The fingertips painted over the frame are original. This trompe-l’oeil technique is an example of a process frequently applied by Memling with the aim of breaking through into the real space beyond the picture plane. The painted strip on which the sitter’s hands rest is not a window-sill, but is seemingly intended as a continuation of the frame.

The sitter of this celebrated portrait was identified in the 19th century as Maria, the second daughter of Willem and Barbara Moreel. However, later this identification was not generally accepted. The painting is also known as the Sibyl of Sambetha on account of an inscription on the scroll.

The companion-piece of the painting, Portrait of an Old Woman, with which it shares an ongoing landscape background, is in the Mus�e du Louvre, Paris.The portraits formed a double portrait.

Memling excelled in portraiture: he had the gift of searching deeply into reality, as he did in this portrait in the Louvre, in which the face stands out before a carefully detailed landscape. Though rather worn in places, this painting has retained its harmony of whites and greys.

The companion-piece of the painting, Portrait of an Old Man, is in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin.

It is in the area of portraiture that Hans Memling appears to have been the most successful, for which a vast patrician clientele existed in Bruges. He paints his models with an exactness, a precision and a concern for detail which bring them strongly to life. This applies to these two devotional portraits, attributed to him and which can be dated to around 1482.

The man and woman, represented in half bust, face each other in an attitude of prayer. Both are positioned in a gallery opening onto a wide landscape. The man is wearing a purplish garment trimmed with fur under which a black doublet with a rising collar is to be seen. A black ‘cornette’ is hanging from his right shoulder. The woman wears a purplish dress with a low V-shaped neckline, edged with a black border typical for the 1470/80s. Around her neck she wears a transparent linen veil or ‘gorgerette’. Above her drawn-back hair, her short truncated ‘hennin’ is covered with a fine veil which falls down over her shoulders. Her necklace consisting of a double row of chain-links is decorated with a pendant containing a pearl and two precious stones. On her left little finger she wears two rings. The top of a golden belt buckle is also visible, just under her chest.

The sitters are identified by their coats of arms and inscriptions on the back of the two panels as Willem Moreel and his wife Barbara van Vlaenderberch, alias de Herstvelde. Willem Moreel, Lord of Oostcleyhem, was one of the richest citizens of Bruges where he was a spice trader. He was also a banker for the Bruges branch of the Banco di Roma. Between 1472 and 1489 he was successively a counsellor, then burgomaster, bailiff and treasurer of the city. He had five sons and thirteen daughters from Barbara van Vlaenderberch. In 1484 the couple also commissioned Hans Memling to paint a large altarpiece (Bruges, Groeningemuseum) for their chapel in the Bruges church of St James, on the side panels of which their entire family is represented.

Originally these two portraits were part of a triptych, of a type intended for meditation and private devotion, the central element of which was a religious subject, probably here a Virgin and Child. The painting probably folded flat and had three equally sized panels. The man’s coat-of-arms is featured on the rear of the woman’s portrait, and will thus have been visible on the outside of the closed case. The exchange of escutcheons will, however, have been intended primarily as a kind of eternal link between the two portraits. Memling applied a similar procedure to the wings of the Last Judgment.

The painting is the right panel of a triptych, the central panel being the Crucifixion, the left panel the Carrying the Cross, all in the Budapest Museum.

This work is the first in a series of narrative paintings which came to represent an important aspect of Memling’s oeuvre. It is a `simultaneous painting’ and like the Munich Advent and Triumph of Christ belongs to the landscape-cum-architecture type. Jerusalem features at the centre of the painting as a condensed version of the circular lay-out of a medieval city. Most of the buildings are tower constructions with porticos in a pseudo-Romanesque style topped with domes. These are intended to evoke the exotic character of an Eastern city, while also creating a variety of settings for the action. The overall effect is that of a complex stage set.

The viewpoint is very high, as a result of which Calvary is visible above the city and a virtual bird’s eye-view is given of the buildings at the bottom. Although consistent one-point perspective is rendered impossible by the varied position of the different buildings, the viewer retains a sense of perspectival unity and logic, from the foreground to the level of the towers, which are ranged squarely across the horizon. In addition to perspectival unity, there is also a spatial unity in the treatment of the scenes and unity of lighting. The latter, in particular, is a rare tour de force in the painting of the period, because the light source is located within the painting and is associated visually with the rising sun on the far right, so that the area located diagonally before it in the front left remains in shadow. Only the donors, who kneel in the corners before the entire spectacle, appear to be immune from this effect. The right-hand part of the architecture, down to a stretch of the crenellated wall at the front, has a pink glow and we see the first, still low rays of the sun reaching the brick gates in the left distance.

The Passion cycle is enacted in this setting with the addition of the Resurrection and several of Christ’s appearances to his followers, but without the Ascension. This is the first time that Memling applied the spatial narrative structure that he was later to use on two other occasions (Munich and L�beck) to present a Gospel cycle. The narrative meanders symmetrically from the rear left to the foreground and through the principal scene in the middle, before culminating on the right, once again in the distance. Calvary is set somewhat apart as the principal scene in the background. Christ’s various appearances after his Resurrection are not particularly significant in iconographical terms, and are probably included as visual links running into the landscape. The painting enabled believers to visit the Holy Places in and around Jerusalem in their imagination. It is a kind of spiritual model of the crusaders’ journey.

The donors have been identified as Tommaso Portinari, a Florentine banker in Bruges, and his wife Maria Baroncelli on the grounds of their resemblance to bust portraits of the couple painted by Memling.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 8 minutes):

Johann Sebastian Bach: St. Matthew Passion BWV 244 (excerpts)