Hans Memling: Portraiture, Piety, and a Reunited
Altarpiece
September 2, 2016 through January 8, 2017
Completed around 1470 in Bruges, Hans Memling’s extraordinary
Triptych of Jan Crabbe was dismantled centuries ago and the
parts were scattered. The inner
wings from the altarpiece are among the finest paintings owned by the Morgan
Library & Museum, where they
have long been on permanent view in museum founder Pierpont Morgan’s study.
Hans Memling: Portraiture, Piety, and a Reunited
Altarpiece , opening on September 2, reunites the Morgan panels
with t he other elements of the famous triptych: the central panel from the Musei Civici in Vicenza, Italy, and the
outer wings from the
Groeningemuseum in Bruges, Belgium.
The Triptych of Jan Crabbe , ca. 1467-70. Oil on panel. Cent er panel: Image courtesy of Pinacoteca Civica di Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza. Left and righ t panels: © The Morgan Library & Museum, Photography by Graham S. Haber.
This exhibition—on view through January 8, 2017—is the first to explore the
reconstructed masterpiece in
context. The altarpiece will be su rrounded by other paintings by Memling and
his contemporaries, by a choice selection of illumi nated manuscripts from
Bruges, and by a group of Early
Netherlandish drawings.
Aside from the t iptych fragments from Italy and Belgium,
loans from the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, the Fr ick Collection, and a private collection will complement a range of works fr om the
Morgan’s own holdings.
The Crabbe triptych is a masterpiece of the first order and shows a relatively
young Memli ng demonstrating many of
the characteristic elements
of his work—crystalline realism,
spatial sophistication, and the
ability to capture the humanity
and individuality of his subjects.
THE EXHIBITION
Triptych of Jan Crabbe
Morgan acquired the triptych’s inner wings in 1907. They were part of an altarpiece
commissioned by Jan Crabbe, Abbot
of the Cistercian monastery of Ten
Duinen, near Bruges, Belgium. On the central panel, Memling depicted the crucifixion of
Christ, with the Virgin Mary, St.
John the Evangelist, and St. Mary
Magdalene to the left of the cross. Kneeling to the right of the cross is Jan Crabbe, accompanied by his name-saint St. John the Baptist and St.
Bernard of Clairvaux, the founder
of the Cistercian order. The two
inner wings depict members
of the patron’s family: his
mother Anna Willemzoon with St. Anne on the left, and his much younger half-brother
Willem de Winter with St. William
on the right. The outer wings, originally visible only when the panels are
closed, feature an Annunciation
scene with the Angel Gabriel and
the Virgin Mary. It is not known precisely when or why the work was dismantled,
though it was not unus ual for composite pieces such as triptychs to suffer
this fate.
The Triptych of Jan Crabbe is a fine demonstration of Memling’s extraordinary ability
to capture the essence of the
human face. In particular, the left panel portrait of Anna Willemzoon is one
of the most frank and
extraordinary depictions of old age from the Renaissance. Indeed, in later years, Memling’s
portraiture wo uld come to revolutionize the genre across Europe. Similarly
transformative, the Annunciation scene features Gabriel and the Virgin Mary
clad in white drapery and set on pedestals in niches like sculptures, but with
rosy flesh tones in their heads
and hands, making them one of the earliest examples of the technique of demi-grisaille
in Flemish painting.
Triptych of Jan Crabbe in
Context
Paintings by Memling and his Contemporaries
Several independent portrait paintings from Memling’s early
and late career offer further evidence
of Memling’s extraordinary talent as a portraitist. Although Memling’s
painterly style developed as he grew older, his ability to capture the essenc e
of his sitters’ personalities never changed. Memling did not work in isolation, and a painting
representing the Virgin and Child with St. Anne by a contemporary artist known as the Master of the Saint
Ursula Legend provides an ideal
counterpart to the triptych with its broad landscape and similar iconography. It shows how Memling’s
production fits alongside that of other painters in Bruges, while also
highlighting how his technical abilities surpassed most others.
Manuscript Illumination in Bruges
n the fifteenth century, Bruges was an important center
for manuscript illumination. Mem
ling’s development of the demi-grisaille technique has generally been traced to
his time spent in Cologne, but in fact, varieties of grisaille and
demi-grisaille were regularly used
in Bruges manuscript illumination in the decades prior to the painting of the Crabbe triptych, as will be
shown with a selection of Books of
Hours from the Morgan’s rich holdings.
Conversely, the radical naturalism of Memling’s painting seems to have
served as an inspiration to the manuscript painters. Superb manuscripts from the Morgan’s collection will show
that reflections of Memling’s painting technique began to appear in manuscript
painting towards the end of the
fifteenth century.
Hans Memling (Flemish, ca.
1440–1494), Portrait of a Man ,
ca. 1470, Oil on panel. © The Frick Collection.
Master of the Saint Ursula Legend (Flemish,
active late 15 th century), Virgin and Child with St. Anne
presenting Anna van Nieuwenhove , ca.
1479-83. Oil on panel. © Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman
Collection.
