Hans Memling. Alfred Michiels

10

Kunstreise durch England und Belgien, p. 94.

11

I stated in the first edition of my Histoire de la peinture flamande, on studying this picture: “On a prétendu que c’était là le costume des malades soignés dans l’hôpital Saint-Jean. Mais si Memling n’eut besoin des religieux qu’en l’année 1477, il ne devait pas être vêtu de la sorte quinze ans plus tôt. Il ne peut avoir été infirme toute sa vie et parqué sans cesse entre les murs du charitable asile. Consultez la tradition, rien de mieux, mais n’en abusez pas. Ce vêtement d’ailleurs habillait au XVe siècle une foule de personnes, qui n’étaient ni blessées, ni indigentes: on le retrouve sur un grand nombre de peintures, notamment sur un portrait exécuté par Antonello da Messina, que renferme le musée d’Anvers. Il faut donc bien y reconnaître une mode de l’époque.” (“It has been claimed that this was the garb of the patients tended in the Saint John’s Hospital. But if Memling only had need of the religious carers in the year 1477, he would not have been dressed in that way fifteen years earlier. He could not have been ill his whole life and forever kept within the walls of a charitable asylum. By all means consult the traditions of the time, but don’t go too far. Many people who were neither injured nor impoverished wore this clothing in the fifteenth century; it can be found in a huge number of paintings, notably in a portrait executed by Antonio da Messina, which is held by the Museum of Antwerp. This style of dress is therefore a recognised fashion of the time.”)

12

Piciorum aliquot Germanioe inferior is effigies (1570).

13

The Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles, which reproduces the engraving of 1570, can be used to draw this parallel.

14

The painting in the National Gallery is just twelve inches high and eight wide.

15

Histoire de la peinture flamande (second edition), third volume, chapter 15.

16

“Il avait l’œil à tout; quiconque ne se serait pas trouvé à l’heure ou à la place prescrite, qui aurait manqué à la chapelle ou à l’audience, l’écuyer qui se serait mis entre les chevaliers, celui qui serait allé à l’offrande avant son tour, étaient bien assurés de quelque sévère leçon. Souvent même, lorsque ses serviteurs et ses nobles barons étaient rangés autour de son fauteuil, il leur faisait, ainsi qu’un orateur, des sermons sur la conduite qu’ils devaient tenir, sur les vertus de leur rang et de leur état, les admonestant avec gravité et hauteur.” (“He had his eye on everything; anyone who was late or not in their prescribed place, who missed chapel or a hearing, the squire who placed himself amongst the knights, and he who made his offering during the collection at mass before his turn, could all be sure of a severe lesson. Often, with his servants and barons gathered around his chair, he would even lecture them like an orator, giving sermons on how they should behave, on the virtues of their rank and state, gravely and haughtily admonishing them.”) De Barante: Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne (after Chastelain).

17

Michelet, Histoire de France.

18

“Sa tente était entourée de quatre cents autres, où logeaient tous les seigneurs de sa cour et les serviteurs de sa maison. Au dehors brillait l’écusson de ses armes, orné de perles et de pierreries; le dedans était tendu de velours rouge brodé en feuillages d’or et de perles; des fenêtres, dont les vitraux étaient enchâssés dans des baguettes d’or, y avaient été ménagées. Le fauteuil, où il recevait les ambassadeurs et donnait ses solennelles audiences, était d’or massif, etc.” (“His tent was surrounded by four hundred others, where all the knights of his court and servants of his household were living. On the outside gleamed the escutcheon emblazoned with his arms, decorated with pearls and gems; the inside was hung with red velvet embroidered with leaves of gold and pearls. Windows had been put in to the walls of the tent, with stained glass set into gold. The chair, in which he received ambassadors and gave solemn audiences, was made of solid gold, etc.”) Histoire des ducs de Bourgogne by M. De Barante.

19

Histoire de la peinture flamande, third volume, p. 77.

20

“De weduwe Wilhem Vreylands.”

21

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.

22

“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 ver gierroede dans les comptes.” (“This Jan Floreins features on the large painting as on the small one, apparently because he had paid the expenses, information which I was not able to find in the hospital accounts, though his brother’s name can be found there. – The job of public gauger belonged from time immemorial to on of the brothers of the hospital, and I have found numerous instances were it is mentioned in the household accounts, from the thirteenth century to just after the time of Jan Floreins. The product of this job was habitually recorded in the accounts, but without indication of which person held the post. Amongst the archives of this establishment, in addition to several treaties on gauging, a very ancient gauge called ver gierroede is mentioned in the accounts of the fifteenth century.”) Scourion, Messager des sciences et des arts, 1826, p. 302.

23

At that time, most started at the age of twenty-five.

24

The French can admire these exquisite hands in the painting in the Louvre, which was owned at one time by the Count Duchâtel.

25

The Mother Superior who communicated these facts to the critic Passavant told him that she had taken them from the hospital archives, to which she refused him entrance. The traveller put them in an article for Kunstblatt (year 1843, no. 62). The Count of Croeser, the administrator of the hospital, to whom we owe the only existing booklet on the paintings owned by that establishment, never knew of these items relating to Memling; he only saw the accounts detailing the payments made for the joinery of the reliquary. Where do the other hidden documents come from? Why for thirty-nine years did he not ask anyone nor obtain authorisation to look through the archives of the hospice? Here is a source of positive information, indicated years before in a journal, and not one person in Belgium took the trouble to consult it!

26

Guillaume de Herle, based in Cologne and claimed by Germany as one of their own, was in fact Flemish; he was born in the Flemish-speaking village of Herle (now Heerlen), in the Dutch province of Limburg, three leagues from Maastricht.

27

“Le peintre de sainte Ursule, dit Nagler, aimait les bords du Rhin, et ses paysages en rappellent les sites. Ce fut dans ces régions qu’il trouva les types des personnages figurés sur la châsse. La ville de Cologne ellemême y est représentée deux fois d’une manière exacte avec quelques-uns de ses principaux monuments. Rien, au contraire, n’atteste la connaissance des anciens édifices de Rome.” (“The painter of Saint Ursula, says Nagler, loved the banks of the Rhine, and these landscapes evoke these places. It was in these regions that he found the types of people featured on

Скачать книгу