Provenance

Bernardo Bembo

Italian, died 1519

Explore selected works

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

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

Bibliography

1800

  • Morelli, D. Jacopo. Notizia d'opere di disegno. Bassano, 1800: 17.

1960

  • Ghisalberti, Alberto Maria, ed. Dizionario biografico degli italiani. 79+ vols. Rome, 1960+: 8(1966):103-109, 133-151.

1986

  • Hand, John O. and Martha Wolfe. Early Netherlandish Painting. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1986: 193, 196 and 199 n. 6-8.