Hans Memling, 'The Virgin and Child with an Angel', about 1480

The Virgin and Child with an Angel

Hans Memling

Not on display

About the work

Overview

The Virgin Mary and Christ Child are enthroned beneath a canopy and before a cloth of honour of the kind displayed behind medieval kings and queens.The naked child is balanced on her knee and crumples the pages of an open book. The unidentified donor kneels on the right: he was presumably called George as Saint George stands behind him, the limp and lifeless body of the dragon that he killed is at his feet.

Memling ran a large workshop, and certain oddities in the composition – the way the Christ Child reaches out towards nothing, for example – might indicate that this is the work of an assistant. But technical analysis suggests an alternative explanation. The painting was done very quickly and there are many changes between the underdrawing and the final painted version, including the head of the donor. The picture may be attributed to Memling himself, perhaps working under unusual constraints, for a difficult and impatient client.

In-depth

The Virgin Mary and Christ Child are enthroned beneath a canopy and before a cloth of honour of the kind displayed behind medieval kings and queens. The cords holding up the canopy would once have disappeared behind the now-missing frame; the carpet at the Virgin’s feet is said to resemble a Turkoman hali. The naked child is balanced rather awkwardly on his mother’s knee and he crumples the pages of an open book, the inscription of which was never intended to be legible. On the left, a half-kneeling angel wearing an alb plucks at a lute.

The unidentified donor kneels on the right. He is soberly dressed, with a dagger and purse at his belt. We know nothing about him, although he was presumably called George: Saint George stands behind him, his banner in one hand and the limp and lifeless body of the dragon that he killed at his feet. The group are arranged in a kind of loggia that opens onto a walled garden behind. The man leaving through the gate in the corner appears to be Saint Joseph. Behind the wall is a landscape, with ships on a stretch of water on the left and a woman with a basket on her head walking along a road near a large building on the right.

Almost every element in the picture can be found in other paintings by Hans Memling. Both Virgin and Child are remarkably similar to these figures in The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors (The Donne Triptych), and the resemblance is even closer in the underdrawing. The Virgin is very close to that in his Virgin of Jacob Florens (Paris, Louvre) and in the Triptych of the two Saints John. The pattern of the cloth of honour and the tiled floor recur in in the Donne Triptych and in other paintings.

Memling ran a large workshop, and certain oddities in the composition – the way the Christ Child reaches out towards nothing, for example – might indicate that this is the work of an assistant. But technical analysis suggests an alternative explanation. The painting was evidently done very quickly: infrared reflectograms show that the underdrawing is hasty and schematic and that parts of the painting, like the angel and the lute, were painted at great speed. There are also many changes between the underdrawing and the final painted version. Saint George’s head was initially drawn slightly higher and at a different angle, and his banner was considerably altered, as was the donor’s head.

If the painter was not Memling himself, then he was an associate with a commanding knowledge of Memling’s pictures and access to his workshop designs. The alterations in the donor’s head and the apparent speed of execution suggest another possibility, however. Could the faults with the composition have been caused by the patron rather than the artist? Patrons at this date would have instructed the painter as to what they wanted shown in their pictures. The commissioner must have set the painter an impossible task when asking for a balanced arrangement of these five principal figures. He was clearly unhappy with the first version of his portrait, which had to be redone. He may also have wanted the painting finished in a hurry. The painting may therefore be attributed to Memling himself, working under unusual constraints, for a difficult and impatient client.

Key facts

Details

Full title: The Virgin and Child with an Angel, Saint George and a Donor
Artist: Hans Memling
Artist dates: active 1465; died 1494
Date made: about 1480
Medium and support: oil on wood
Dimensions: 54.2 × 37.4 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought, 1862
Inventory number: NG686
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection

Provenance

On the reverse is an unidentified seal in red wax showing a shield beneath a helmet and crest. On the shield is a three-masted, square-rigged ship with gunports; it is sailing from right to left. The crest is a single-masted ship. Carved into the reverse of the panel are the letters I F, perhaps the initials of a former owner; the same letters are chalked onto the reverse. The picture belonged at one time to Christian Geerling, a Cologne dealer, who died in 1848. In the autumn of 1842 it was with the dealer Lafontaine in Cologne. Either Geerling or Lafontaine sold it to the architect and collector Johann Peter Weyer (1794–1864) at Cologne, who was the owner by July 1847. At the Weyer sale, Cologne, 25 August 1862 and the following days, it was lot 234 and was bought by Mündler for the National Gallery.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Lorne Campbell, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Schools’, London 1998; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2017

Reflections: Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites

The National Gallery (London)

2 October 2017 - 2 April 2018
2018

Truth and Beauty: The Pre-Raphaelites and the Old Masters

Legion of Honor (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco)

30 June 2018 - 30 September 2018
2019

Making a Masterpiece: Bouts and Beyond, 1450-2020

York Art Gallery

11 October 2019 - 26 January 2020

Bibliography

1909

K. Voll, Memling: Des Meisters Gemälde, Stuttgart 1909
1934

R.N.D. Wilson, The National and Tate Galleries, London 1934
1945

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, London 1945
1953

M. Davies, The National Gallery, London, Les Primitifs flamands. I, Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pay-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle 3, 2 vols, Antwerp 1953
1955

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: Early Netherlandish School, 2nd edn (revised), London 1955
1967

M.J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting, eds N. Veronée-Verhaegen and H. Pauwels, trans. H. Norden, 14 vols, Leiden 1967
1983

J. Mills and R. White, 'Pictures Cleaned and Restored in the Conservation Department of the National Gallery, January 1982 – December 1982', National Gallery Technical Bulletin, VII, 1983
1983

J. Mills, Carpets in Paintings (exh. cat. The National Gallery, 1 June - 24 July 1983), London 1983
1987

Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The Early Netherlandish School, 3rd edn, London 1987
1993

D. Martens, 'La "Madone au trône arqué" et la peinture brugeoise de la fin du Moyen Âge', Jahrbuch der Berliner Museen, XXXV, 1993, pp. 129-74
1998

Campbell, Lorne, National Gallery Catalogues: The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, London 1998
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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(Showing 6 of 9 works)

A Young Man at Prayer

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A pale young man, hands folded in prayer, is engaged in private devotions. This small painting was clearly the left wing of a diptych (a painting made of two parts) or triptych (a painting made of three parts). The object of his prayer would have been shown to his right, on a panel attached to t...

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Saint John the Baptist

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Saint John the Baptist stands in a kind of loggia (an open-sided gallery or room) with a tiled floor, wearing a hair shirt and holding his emblem, the lamb. This is the left wing of The Donne Triptych, painted by Hans Memling for the Welsh nobleman and diplomat Sir John Donne, probably in the lat...

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Saint John the Baptist

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Saint John the Baptist, dressed in a hair shirt and a purple mantle, holds his attribute of a lamb. This refined painting was originally the left wing of a small triptych (an image made up of three parts). The central panel, which shows the Virgin and Child, is now in the Uffizi, Florence while t...

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Saint John the Evangelist

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Saint John the Evangelist holds a chalice from which a serpent escapes. He appears on the inside of the left shutter of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), the central panel and other wing of which are also in the National Gallery’s collection. They were painted for the Welsh nobleman a...

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Saint Lawrence

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Saint Lawrence is dressed as a deacon and holds a book and the grill on which he was martyred. This panel was part of a small triptych (a painting in three parts) made around 1480 for Benedetto Pagagnotti of Florence. The central panel shows the Virgin and Child and is now in the Uffizi, Florence...

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The Donne Triptych

Hans Memling

Courtier and soldier Sir John Donne kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child in the central panel of this triptych (a painting in three parts), which he commissioned, facing his wife Elizabeth and one of their daughters. With them are Saints Catherine and Barbara, two of the most popular medieva...

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The Donne Triptych

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This is the central panel of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), probably commissioned by Sir John Donne in the late 1470s. In it, he kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child, facing his wife Elizabeth and one of their daughters. They are accompanied by their patron saints Catherine an...

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Two Panels from a Triptych

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These panels were once the wings of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), the centre panel of which – The Virgin and Child with Two Angels – is now in the Uffizi, Florence. The altarpiece was demonstrably in Florence by the end of the fifteenth century, as its landscape backgrounds were f...

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Virgin and Child

Hans Memling

The Virgin Mary, bareheaded and richly dressed, holds the naked Christ Child, who rests on a white cushion on a ledge. We are not sure whether the painting was once part of a triptych (a painting made up of three sections) or stood alone. The infant Christ could be blessing a donor in a panel on...

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You've viewed 6 of 9 works

Hans Memling, 'The Virgin and Child with an Angel', about 1480

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Hans Memling