Early Flemish Portraits 1425-1525: The Metropolitan Museum of Art ...

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ortrait's origunction are Any estima- te This painting is generally said to be one of but two "independent" portraits se- curely attributable to Dieric Bouts; the other is the portrait dated 1462 (fig. 31). This is perhaps better termed a single portrait because the fingertips joined in other paint male sitter has been trimmed within the original painted surface and set into an oak panel so that this does not appear to be a fragment; but, in fact, 52
very similar to this one, the so-called Seven sian (fig. 28), these moldings seem to be an the donor's son appears in a work by Memling 1470 or 1471. extension of the actual frame. However, where Joys of Mary in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich. the Carthusian is clearly positioned in a space Although the donors' figures in Memling's behind the simulated frame, here the sitters are Passion of Christ are only four inches high, they in front of it. The picture plane has become a are unmistakably recognizable as Tommaso very shallow recess before which they appear to project. As we have already seen, Jan Gossart later employs the same device in his Virgin and Child (fig. 11). The lost center panel of the and Maria Portinari (figs. 43, 44). Indeed, it was by comparison to the Museum's pictures that the donors in the Turin Passion were identified. The portrayals, with the heads viewed Portinari triptych-probably a half-length from precisely the same angles, are so similar Virgin and Child as well-was presumably that one pair seems to have served as the treated in similar fashion. model for the other. Obviously, the large, de- Memling portrayed Tommaso and Maria tailed portraits in New York would be pri- Portinari on at least one other occasion. Their mary. That they may have been copied for the full-length donor portraits appear at the lower smaller donor portraits is consistent with left and right corners of a small panel in Turin what we know of fifteenth-century portrait- (fig. 42) that depicts Christ's Passion. It has painting practice, and the likelihood is not been suggested, quite plausibly, that because discounted by the absence of Maria's magnifithe donors are unaccompanied by any off- cent necklace in the Passion. It may have been spring, the picture must have been painted omitted because of the figure's small scale or, between 1470, the year of their marriage, more probably, because it was deemed inapand September 15, 1471, the birth date of their first child, Margherita. Had the picture been propriately ostentatious attire in which to witness Christ's suffering on the road to Calvary. painted later, she probably would have been If the Museum's portraits preceded those in included at prayer by her mother's side, just as the Turin Passion, they must date as well from 39. Memling's Virgin and Child with Marten van Nieuwenhove is a consummate expression of spatial illusion that fully integrates the frame and unites the patron's portrait and the devotional image. Nevertheless, it maintains propriety by using varying perspectives to differentiate the Virgin's sacred realm from the sitter's temporal environment. The image of Saint Martin dividing his cloak at the right establishes the spiritual presence of the sitter's patron saint without disturbing the painting's naturalness and also serves as an emblem of his charity. The Nieuwenhove coat of arms and Marten's device appear to the left of the Virgin. Roundels to her right show Saints George and Christopher. Memlingmuseum O.C.M. W, Sint-Jans Hospitaal, Bruges overleaf and following page 40, 41. These portraits of Tommaso and Maria Portinari, painted by Hans Memling about 1470/71, are among the artist's most finely executed. Left: 173/8X 13/4 in. Right: 173/X 133/8 in. Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.626,627) 53
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Page 9 and 10: 3. Considered during the fifteenth
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Page 13 and 14: 7. The features of the aristocratic
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Page 18 and 19: tended as a proper portrait. Its as
Page 20 and 21: 14. On the lower register of the ex
Page 22 and 23: 16. Jan van Eyck's painting, dated
Page 24: Unfortunately, much less is known a
Page 27: 18. In Hans Memling's painting of t
Page 31 and 32: 20. At an early but unknown date, t
Page 33 and 34: tion. As seen particularly in works
Page 35: opposite 23. In this detail ofJoos
Page 38 and 39: 27. It has been proposed that each
Page 40 and 41: opposite 29. Francesco d'Este, the
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Page 44 and 45: traits, these artists were capable
Page 46: 33, 34. The Metropolitan Museum's P
Page 50 and 51: Painted by Jan Gossart, probably du
Page 52 and 53: 36, 37. The Virgin and Child with J
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Page 63 and 64: elow 50, 51. Little is known about
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