Hans Memling

Memlinc, Hans

Netherlandish, active c. 1465 - 1494

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German/Flemish painter (c. 1430–1494)

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Shown under an ornately carved stone arch, a young woman holds a baby on her lap as she sits on a curving gold chair flanked by two kneeling angels in this vertical painting. All of the people have pale skin. The woman has long blond hair, a straight nose, and a small pink mouth. Her body faces us but she gazes down. She wears a gold-trimmed, deep blue robe under a crimson-red mantle that covers her shoulders and drapes over her lap and to the floor. She holds an open book with her left hand, on our right, and supports the sitting baby’s body with her other hand. The baby is nude except for a piece of white fabric across one thigh. The baby touches the open book with one hand and reaches toward a small, round piece of fruit the angel on our left offers. That angel has blond hair and sapphire-blue wings, and wears a pale blue garment under a red and gold patterned robe. The angel holds out the fruit with the right hand and in the other, holds an instrument like a violin and bow. The angel to our right has similar hair and facial features, and has blue wings and a sky-blue robe. Both hands strum a harp as the angel gazes to our left almost in profile. Behind the chair, a cloth patterned in pine green and gold hangs vertically from a curving red overhang between tall, narrow archways that open onto a landscape. In the distance, people move through green fields and along a river winding toward a castle to our left beneath a clear blue sky. The angels' wings overlap with the stone archway that frames the scene. It is carved along the inner edge of the arch with vines, lizards, and snails. Two columns flank the arch and atop each is a bearded man, as if carved from the same cream-colored stone of the arch. The man to our left holds a harp and the one to our right holds a saw. Winged, nude, child-like people, putti, hold orbs aloft in the upper corners.
Hans Memling, Madonna and Child with Angels, after 1479, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.41

Madonna and Child with Angels

Hans Memling · after 1479 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.41

Shown from the shoulders up, a man with peachy skin looks off to our left as he holds the feathered end of an arrow up in a hand resting along the bottom edge of this vertical portrait painting. Shown against a marine-blue background, he looks into the distance with hazel eyes under bushy eyebrows. He has a long, bumped nose, and his full, pale pink lips are closed. His round cheeks are tinged with pink, and there is a hint of a five-o-clock shadow around his mouth and jawline. Chestnut-brown, curly hair hangs to the base of his neck, and wispy curls fall across his forehead from under his tall, chocolate-brown cap. The cap has a small gold pin high over the ear we can see. The man wears a garnet-red jacket with a black collar over a white collarless shirt decorated with five black, narrow bands below the neckline. The fingers of his right hand, to our left, rest with the fingertips braced along on the bottom edge of the painting, as if along a ledge. He pinches the shaft of an arrow with his index finger and thumb, so we see the sienna-brown feathers. He wears a gold ring embedded with a small blue gem near the first knuckle of his ring finger.
Hans Memling, Portrait of a Man with an Arrow, c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.42

Portrait of a Man with an Arrow

Hans Memling · c. 1470/1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1937.1.42

A woman sitting close to us in front of a deep landscape holds up a white cloth with the image of a man’s face on it in this vertical painting. The woman and the image on the cloth both have pale skin, hooded eyes, and long, straight noses. The woman’s shoulders are squared toward us, and her legs are tucked under her. Her head tips slightly to our right. Her eyes are downcast, and her bow-shaped lips are parted. She wears a white, turban-like headdress with a white veil covering her neck and upper chest. Her rose-pink dress is mostly covered by a voluminous, lapis-blue robe falling from the back of the headdress to the ground, where it puddles in angular folds. On the white cloth she holds up, the man’s head has chin-length blond hair and a beard. He looks out at us with light brown eyes. The woman sits on a grassy field. A dirt path cuts through a shallow valley across the picture, not far behind the woman. More harvest-yellow and moss-green hills roll back to a town with gray stone buildings with blue roofs along the horizon, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. The sky above deepens from white at the horizon to azure blue across the top of the painting.
Hans Memling, Saint Veronica [obverse], c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.46.a

Saint Veronica [obverse]

Hans Memling · c. 1470/1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.46.a

A gold chalice holding a thin, green serpent sits in an arched niche in this vertical painting. Light falls across the chalice from our right so it casts a shadow in the shallow gray stone niche. The chalice has a flaring, six-lobed foot, and a knob on the stem is set with red and green, diamond-shaped stones. The slender green snake drapes inside the cup’s round bowl. The serpent’s mouth is open and tongue flicks out to our right, and the tail hangs out of the chalice to our left.
Hans Memling, Chalice of Saint John the Evangelist [reverse], c. 1470/1475, oil on panel, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.46.b

Chalice of Saint John the Evangelist [reverse]

Hans Memling · c. 1470/1475 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1952.5.46.b

Bibliography

1901

  • Weale, W. H. James. Hans Memling. London, 1901.

1942

  • Baldass, Ludwig von. Hans Memling. Vienna, 1942.

1963

  • Folie, Jacqueline. "Les oeuvres authentifiées des primitifs flamands." Bulletin de l'Institut royal du Patrimoine artistique 6 (1963): 225-229.

1967

  • Friedländer 1928, vol. 6 (vol. 6a, 1971).

1971

  • McFarlane, K. B. Hans Memling. Edited by Edgar Wind. Oxford, 1971.

1986

  • Hand, John Oliver and Martha Wolff. Early Netherlandish Painting. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1986: 184.