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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

West Building, Main Floor - Gallery 39

Medium

oil on panel

Dimensions

painted surface: 30.2 x 23 cm (11 7/8 x 9 1/16 in.)
overall: 31.2 x 24.4 cm (12 5/16 x 9 5/8 in.)

framed: 41.3 x 33.2 x 3.5 cm (16 1/4 x 13 1/16 x 1 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.5.46.b

Artists / Makers

Hans Memling (artist) Netherlandish, active c. 1465 - 1494

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Probably Bernardo Bembo, Venice or Verona [d. 1519]. Probably his son, Cardinal Pietro Bembo [1470-1547], Padua.[1] Nicolai Nikitich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1773-1828], near Florence;[2] his son, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1812-1870], near Florence; (his sale, Paris, 3 March 1870, no. 204, repro., etching by Rajou). Private collection, Italy, until c. 1928.[3] (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin). (Paul Cassirer, Berlin).[4] Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza [1875-1947], Schloss Rohoncz, Hungary, and later, Villa Favorita, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland, by 1930;[5] on consigment 1950 with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [6] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA.

[1] Letter of 31 August 1502 from Carlo Bembo, son of Bernardo, to Isabella d'Este, accompanying a loan of paintings to her in Mantua. The letter was published by Vittorio Cian, "Pietro Bembo e Isabella d'Este Gonzaga. Note e documenti," Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 9 (1887), 85-86. Bernardo Bembo was at that time away from Venice on a diplomatic mission. Carlo Bembo died in 1503. For the Bembo family see Dizionario biografico degli italiani (Rome, 1966), 8: 103-109 and 133-151. Approximately thirty years later (after Bernardo's death), Marcantonio Michiel's notes on what seems to be this diptych name the owner as the poet Pietro Bembo, another son of Bernardo: "The little painting with two wings of Saint John the Baptist clothed, with a lamb that sits in a landscape on one side, and Our Lady with the little Child on the other [side] in another landscape, by the hand of Hans Memling, year 1470, this being true." D. Jacopo Morelli, Notizia d'opere di disegno (Bassano, 1800), 17, and Theodor von Frimmel, Der Anonimo Morelliano (Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik) N.F. I (Vienna, 1896), 86. Pietro Bembo's paintings were then in Padua. Jennifer Fletcher, "Marcantonio Michiel: his friends and collection," Burlington Magazine 123 (1981), 461 dates Michiel's notice of Pietro Bembo's collection in the 1520's or early 1530's.

[2] According to the catalogue of the Demidov sale, 3 March 1870, no. 204.

[3] According to Max J. Friedländer, Die altniederländishe Malerei, 14 vols. (Berlin and Leiden, 1928), 6: 125.

[4] According to Friedländer, in Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections, ed. by W.R. Valentiner, (London, 1930), unpaginated, no. 27. [The list of references published in the NGA systematic catalogue entry erroneously cites no. 37 rather than no. 27.]

[5] According to the exhibition catalogue, Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz, Munich, Neue Pinakothek, 1930, no. 222.

[6] Knoedler commission book no. 4, p. 143, no. CA 3725 and sales book no. 16, p. 310, M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Getty Research Institute (copies NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1908).

Associated Names

Bembo, Bernardo
Bembo, Cardinal Pietro
Demidov, prince of San Donato, Anatoly Nikolaievich
Demidov, prince of San Donato, Nicolai Nikitich
Galerie Paul Cassirer
Knoedler & Company, M.
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Private Collection (NGA Former Owner)
The Matthiesen Gallery
Thyssen-Bornemisza, Heinrich, Baron

Exhibition History

1930: Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1930, no. 222.

1931: Alte Pinakotek, Munich, 1931, no cat.

1983: Raphael and America, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1983, no. 78, repro.

1994: Hans Memling's "Saint John the Baptist" and "Saint Veronica", National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1994, brochure, figs. 2, 3, color repros.

1994: The Art of Devotion 1300-1500, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1994-1995, no. 14, repro. 45.

1995: Hans Memling: Johannes und Veronka, Neue Pinakothek, Munich, 1995, no. 2, repro.

2000: Il Volto di Cristo, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2000-2001, no. IV.37, repro.

2002: Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe L'Oeil Painting, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2002-2003, no. 58, color repro.

2013: Face to Face: Flanders, Florence, and Renaissance Painting, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, San Marino, 2013-2014, pl. 29.

2013: Pietro Bembo e l'invenzione del Rinascimento, Palazzo del Monte di Pieta, Padua, 2013,

Technical Summary

The panel is composed of a single piece of wood which has been unevenly trimmed at the top edge. It is approximately .5 cm thick at the bottom edge. The painting on the front of the panel is in excellent condition, with only a few scattered small losses. There are some small areas of abrasion in the sky. The back is in less good condition, having received a number of nicks and scratches as well as more abrasion. However, the chalice and snake are well preserved with only a few small losses. The front of the panel was cleaned and restored in 1982 and the reverse cleaned and restored in 1983.

The figure of Saint Veronica is fully underdrawn in what appears to be black chalk, but infrared reflectography revealed minimal underdrawing in the landscape. The underdrawing on the reverse is free and cursory, providing a more general guide for the painted design, including the shadow cast by the chalice.

Bibliography

1872: Crowe, J. A., and G.B. Cavalcaselle. The Early Flemish Painters: Notices of their Lives and Works. 2nd ed. London, 1872: 299.

1957: Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): pl. 122.

1960: Broadley Hugh T. Flemish Painting in the National Gallery of Art (Booklet no. 5 in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC). Washington, 1960: 5, 22-23, color repro.

1961: Walker, John, Guy Emerson, and Charles Seymour. Art Treasures for America: An Anthology of Paintings & Sculpture in the Samuel H. Kress Collection. London, 1961: 62, 213, fig. 55.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 78, repro.

1981: Campbell, Lorne. "Notes on Netherlandish Pictures in the Veneto in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries." The Burlington Magazine 123 no. 941 (August 1981): 471.

1994: Belting, Hans and Christiane Kruse. Erfindung des Gemäldes: Das erste Jahrhundert der niederländischen Malerei. Munich, 1994: 254-255, color fig. 222.

1994: Vos, Dirk de. Hans Memling: The Complete Works. Translated by Ted Alkins. Antwerp and Ghent, 1994: 204-206, color fig.

1996: Kruse, Christiane. "Eine gemalte Kunsttheorie im Johannes-Veronika-Diptychon von Hans Memling." Pantheon 54 (1996): 37-49, fig. 1a.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Ar: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 50-51, 55, no. 36, color repro.

2004: Nuttall, Paula. From Flanders to Florence: The Impact of Netherlandish Painting, 1400-1500. New Haven and London, 2004: 248.

2006: Verougstraete, Hélène. “Diptychs with Instructions for Use.” In Hand, John Oliver and Ron Spronk, eds. Essays in Context: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych. Cambridge and New Haven, 2006: 161-162, fig. 2.

2007: "El retablo, en la National Gallery of Art de Washington." Lapiz 26, no. 229 (January 2007): 18, color repro.

2007: Lane, Barbara G. Hans Memling: Master Painter in Fifteenth-Century Bruges. London, 2009: 250, 290-291, 251 repro.

2007: Michiels, Alfred. Hans Memling. New York, 2007: [248], 249, color fig.

2010: Martin, Kathleen. “Poison.” In The Book of Symbols. Cologne, 2010: 741, fig. 2.

2016: Stumpel, Jeroen. "Als een open boek." Kunstschrift 60, no. 2 (april/mei 2016): 34, color fig. 34.

2024: Manges Nogueira, Alison. “Concealing portraits in Renaissance Venice: Jacometto’s painted box.” The Burlington Magazine 166 (February 2024): 131.