Standing Virgin and Child-Hans Memling of classic works，appreciate Hans Memling painter classic works ! A number of correspondences, including dimensions, origins and inscriptions prove that the three fragments In Bucharest (the Standing Virgin and Child and the two panels with donors) belong together. They were cut down to matching size obviously before 1656. The Virgin, who is clearly standing up as she reaches the height of the column capitals and does not have the Child on her lap, has been cut in half. The donors, who are kneeling, have been trimmed at the top and bottom to more or less the same height. It is extremely difficult after so much time to determine why the painting was mutilated in this way. The darker color to the man's right, and above all the red drapery to the woman's left, seem to be original, at least in part and are thus likely to be remnants of the patron saints that originally stood alongside the donors. The hypothesis that the three paintings originally belonged to a single fixed panel is strengthened by the half dowel-holes that are still to be seen on the inner edges of the portraits. The three panels are thus fragments of the original vertical planks of the painting, which were linked by internal dowel pegs. We ought, therefore, to imagine a composition similar to the Virgin with donor in Ottawa, but with an extra figure on the opposite side. The Virgin is represented in an unusual portal construction, flanked by two brown marble columns, supporting wooden beams. She stands with the Christ Child on her arm before a cloth of honor in red and black brocade. The construction runs obliquely to the left, with the Virgin turned frontally towards the painter. This shifting of the viewpoint relative to the painting's axis was a favorite perspective effect of Memling's.
The landscape behind the man is painted over a piece of wood inset at a later date. Similar triangular pieces have also been inserted to the left and right of the woman. Like the horizontal strip above the heads in both panels, these additions (to replace damaged or sawn-out sections?) were already present in 1656, when the panels were part of the collection of Leopold Wilhelm.
|
