In the hotel of Margaret of Austria, one could see during the sixteenth century a triptych whose centre panel had been painted by Van der Weyden and whose side panels had been done by a pupil. The piece in the middle represents the Virgin holding the dead Christ in her arms; on the interior side of the panels two angels are moved to pity; on the outside, following a pattern already established, the Annunciation is traced in grey.[7] Memling’s paintings prove that he was influenced by Rogier Van der Weyden at a time when the older artist was practicing his “second style.” Thus we can believe that Memling left Bruges in order to come to Brussels to work under Rogier’s direction.

      Not only did Van der Weyden teach him how to use pencil and paintbrush, but he also taught him the art of oil painting. Descamps claims, however, that Memling did not want to employ this new method, and he always continued to thin his colours with egg white and plant gum. Tempera was then the most commonly employed technique, with these materials carefully mixed in more or less large quantities. The addition of honey, vinegar, or beer then allowed one to change the thickness of the body already obtained; the paint ended up like a coloured varnish, having the double advantage of giving the subject its tone and vigour and preserving the tempera from the harmful effects of the air. For a long time this error found resonance, yet never was this opinion more false nor did it delude the reader more. How would a man so skilled, a man so passionate about beauty, who appreciated so much, have looked down on an admirable means of standing by an ancient procedure? This hypothesis only offers little substance and is refuted elsewhere by facts. It is true, however, that certain of Memling’s canvases, no doubt influenced by his Rhineland apprenticeship, were first started with tempera and then completed in oil. Thus, the master accentuated the principal lines of his composition, painted the rest in infinite delicacy, while his colours, following an unchangeable rule, proved to be so fine that the original drawing seemed to show through it.

      However, this flimsy information hardly gives us a sense of the graceful colourist, and so we escape from the new and find Memling again in the notes from the anonymous traveler mentioned earlier. This time, the anonymous tourist admired, at the residence of Cardinal Grimani, a work by Memling’s brush depicting Isabelle of Portugal, wife of Philip the Good, on which one can read the date of 1450. This painting proves that the Duke of Burgundy, connoisseur to the end, held the artist in the highest opinion; otherwise he would not have entrusted such an important task to him and would not have let him reproduce his wife’s face, which had been painted for the first time by Jan Van Eyck himself. In the new image, the princess was seen a little smaller than she was in nature.[8] She had lost the brightness of her early days: twenty two years had passed since the head of the Bruges school had reproduced her features in all their splendour. What is twenty two years, when one thinks about it? It was one drop in the limitless abyss of eternity. This short space of time nonetheless sufficed to exhaust the soul and shrivel up the body; it embraces all the fertile years of life, almost all our moral existence; and however much time still wanting to abridge it, we do not repeat with bitterness: “Lord, Lord, take this chalice away from me!” Isabelle deserved to pose in front of a superior artist: she was a rare woman. She certainly was for the Duke of Burgundy, as she helped in many circumstances to make judgements, speeches, and activities, as a valiant companion and a skilled auxiliary. A prime minister could not have done better, or have been more useful to his monarch. In 1434, while they resided together in Dijon, the duke, forced to go to Flanders to take care of serious business, made Isabelle the Governor of Burgundy in his absence. It was a turbulent era in which men hardly had time to rest. As soon as Philip the Good left, the sound of a trumpet, the noise of arms, and the neighing of horses rang out in the dukedom: the discontented men and adversaries of the prince believed they would have better luck with a woman. Isabelle immediately convened every last one of her subjects, who rode into the countryside and forced the rebels to surrender. Such a brilliant debut inspired the duke with full confidence in the talents of the princess, whom he employed thereafter as an elite agent, especially in negotiations, in which she demonstrated great dexterity.

      She