Hans Memling. Alfred Michiels
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Berlin, Berlin.
Jean Fouquet, Virgin and Child with Seraphim and Cherubim, c. 1450. Oil on wood panel, 91 × 80 cm. Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp.
First-hand Information
The first archives which mention Memling, in chronological order, are those from accounts taken by the Office of Scribes and Illuminators of Bruges.[19] Here is a note that was found there:
“Year 1477. Item, given to the woodsman five escalins, two for our painting’s frame and three for the flaps that I sent to Master Hans, from our corporation.”
A second note states that twelve gros be given to Guillaume Vrelant when he charged Memling with painting the flaps. This Guillaume Vrelant is a very interesting character. It was he who, long before, had executed for Philip the Good the beautiful miniatures of the Annals of the Hainaut, from Jacques de Guyse. The first volume of this enormous and splendid work, in certain areas as fresh as the day it was finished, is the oldest document which concerns Master Guillaume. The painting of these miniatures started in 1446. The corporation’s register of scribes and illuminators in Bruges mentions the artist from the year 1454. In the month of June 1469, Philip the Good’s treasurer gave Guillaume thirty three books to have painted, at 12 sous apiece, “stories of many colours” in a volume called Vita Christi. Vrelant paid the corporation’s annual dues until 1481, but the next year he died, and his widow stopped the payment.[20] Did Guillaume truly pass these over to Memling as an intermediary, and remunerate him for his work? I highly doubt it: artists were not treated with such ceremony then. The old Flemish word verleid means “lent, advanced.” Why would twelve gros have been lent to Guillaume Vrelant on this occasion? Perhaps because he wanted to give them to Memling, waiting for his portrait and that of his wife to cover two panels in his house. An inventory of goods that the Guild possessed in 1499 proves this to be the case: there one can read “Also, their painting with four panels, where Guillaume Vreland and his wife are painted, in their blessed memory, executed by the hand of Master Hans.”
It seems that Guillaume’s payment was quickly spent, because he soon had to give the painter one livre, and, in 1478, Memling got back, for settlement in full, three livres two escalins.[21]
Hans Memling, Virgin and Child (left panel of the Martin Van Nieuwenhove Diptych), 1487. Oil on wood, 52.5 × 41.5 cm. Hospitaalmuseum, Bruges.
Hans Memling, The Donor Martin Van Nieuwenhove (right panel of the Martin Van Nieuwenhove Diptych), 1487. Oil on wood, 52.5 × 41.5 cm. Hospitaalmuseum, Bruges.
All this does not indicate riches, or even comfort. An artist who asked for just one livre for two paintings was not worth much. We may note, in passing, that Memling did not work on the central panel, which was already finished, when he was commissioned to decorate the shutters. In 1490 two new shutters were added to the altarpiece, on which Arnould Basekin, head of the guild, and another member of the corporation, Jean de Cler, were depicted, as well as Saint Arnold and Saint Nicholas in grey.
Memling’s poverty, at the period of his life we have reached, is easily explained. Death tragically took away his protector Charles the Bold, and at the latter’s defeat at Nancy the painter was probably just only able to save himself – and he was injured! We must note that artists’ profits were not great. Pieter Van der Weyden’s portrait, previously mentioned, shows us the state of poverty in which small profits kept artists. The great colourist had neither savings nor reserves. The loss of his bags and the money bag at Nancy thus put him in a precarious situation. The struggles that Marie of Burgundy supported against the rapacity of Louis XI and the demands of the towns did not allow him to think about the luxury of painting. “They did not let one day of sad leisure pass,” according to De Barante, “to mourn the death of his father.” Memling, from this moment on, could not count even on the eventual products of his paintbrush and specific commissions. Luckily he met Brother Jan Floreins at the hospice, who loved painting passionately, a meeting that was indeed good luck.
The story now takes us inside the hospital. Two works of exceptional merit bear the date 1479. One represents the mystic marriage of Saint Catherine, the story of Saint John the Baptist, and that of Saint John the Evangelist; the second shows us The Adoration of the Magi (Illustration 1, 2). These two works were commissioned by Jan Floreins,[22] and are attributed to Memling. In the first, the artist places himself behind Saint Catherine; for clothes, he is wearing the ordinary habit of the hospital’s monks, and seems happy to be portrayed in such a beautiful work. In the background of the painting he appears again, dressed in a black robe, exercising the functions of a public pourer; jugs surround him, and there is a crane, which was employed to load and unload the wine and liquor; the buildings and a distant tower indicate the place where they were bottled. Memling’s atelier mark is found on the bottom of the central panel, near the Latin inscription. The monk is not forgotten in The Adoration of the Magi; we see him on his knees, praying fervently. He was then thirty-six years old, and his figure shows him to have a kind, vivacious nature. Memling and this loyal man must have understood each other well.
During the year 1480, the eminent artist made for one of the chapels at Notre Dame a repetition of the same subject: Pierre Bultynck, deputy mayor of Bruges, and Catherine Van Riebeke, his wife, the donors, are depicted, and shine in their finest attire, enchanted to have received such a great honour.
Hans Memling, Saint Veronica (reverse of the Jan Floreins Triptych), c. 1470–1475. Oil on panel, 30.3 × 22.8 cm. Collection Samuel H. Kress, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.
Rogier Van der Weyden, Saint Mary Magdalene (right shutter of the Braque Triptych), c. 1452. Oil on wood, 41 × 34 cm. Musée du Louvre, Paris.
From this moment, everything changed in Memling’s destiny. Did he receive a legacy? Did he marry a woman who brought him her fortune? These two events took place one after the other. One positive proof certifies that the great man married around this time, when popular tradition has him entering Bruges hospital after the defeat in Nancy. One may suppose, moreover, that Jan Floreins, who protected and admired him, united him with one of the penitent women. In a religious century, the confessional gave the priest a great influence. He confidentially looked after the prettiest people in the parish, and had the right to ask them for intimate confessions; not only did he see their beauty up close, but he could most assuredly judge their character, and get information from them. He was capable of a very powerful yet moral means of coordinating nuptials. In 1477 Memling was fifty years old and poor, two circumstances that did not dazzle young women and did not help him conquer their good graces. This was a large obstacle. His future wife had, moreover, a beautiful face, a bright complexion, and a silky head of hair, of which she was very proud, that could have inspired ambition in him and charmed other suitors. She also had a gentle, timid, and honest character that he could invoke through pious motifs or by other means. The wedding took place promptly, for the couple celebrated their nuptials in the same year that the great painter escaped from the Swiss. When he died in 1495 he left young children, and his oldest son, who, like him was called Hans, became head of the family in 1503. He was born in 1478, in the middle of the year after the marriage of his father. This is an interesting mathematical coincidence.[23]
The young lady who married Memling was in all likelihood poor like him, for the precarious financial position of the artist hardly changed after the wedding: but she received a modest inheritance in 1480. Even though her succession was very small, she was able to increase the couple’s lot. We do not know what the bride’s family name was, but her baptismal name was Anne. However,
“De weduwe Wilhem Vreylands.”
Two new shutters mentioned in the guild’s accounts at that time cannot be attributed to Memling, since the records concerning him speak only of two wings painted by him.
“Ce Jan Floreins figure sur le grand comme sur le petit tableau, apparemment parce qu’il en avait payé la dépense, que je n’ai pu trouver renseignée dans les comptes de l’hôpital, quoique que j’y aie bien vu le nom de ce frère. – L’emploi du jaugeur public appartenait de temps immémorial à l’un des frères de l’hôpital, et j’en ai vu un nombre considérable de mentions dans les comptes de la maison, depuis le XIIIe siècle jusque bien après l’époque de Jan Floreins. Le produit de cet emploi est renseigné habituellement dans les comptes, mais sans indication de celui qui l’exerçait. On voit encore aux archives de cet établissement, outre quelques traités manuscrits de jaugeage, du XVe siècle, une très ancienne jauge, appelée
At that time, most started at the age of twenty-five.