MEMLINC (MEMLINC), HANS. — Flemish painter, born in the vicinity of Mainz, probably at Mömlingen, around 1433, died at Bruges on 11 August 1494. He worked in Bruges for the Hospital of St. John, for the guilds, and also for the Italian agents of the Medici (ca. 1470–1472): a Last Judgment for Angelo Tani, now in the church of St. Mary in Gdańsk, and the portraits of Tommaso Portinari and his wife, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
His earliest works—the Madonna and Child among angels, saints, and devotees (collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth), of 1468; The Virgin with Donor (Liechtenstein Collection at Vaduz), of 1472—reveal him as an already fully formed artist, with his own vision, expressive of an inner life that is calm and contemplative. From 1475 to 1490, M. worked especially for the Hospital of St. John and for the municipal magistrates of Bruges: the Moreel and Nieuwenhove families. Worthy of mention are the Moreel Portraits (1478, Brussels Museum), the Portrait of Maria Moreel, called the Sibyl Sambeth (Hospital of St. John in Bruges), the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, and the Adoration of the Magi (1479, Hospital of St. John), the Seven Joys of the Virgin (1480, Munich Pinakothek), culminating in what is regarded as his masterpiece, the altarpiece with St. Christopher, St. Maurus, and St. Giles (Bruges Municipal Museum), completed in 1484 for G. Moreel. Then there are the diptych with the Virgin and the donor Martin Van Nieuwenhove (1487, Hospital of St. John), the Diptych with the Floreyns Family at the Feet of the Virgin (1489, Paris, Louvre), and his most celebrated work, the Reliquary of St. Ursula (1489, Hospital of St. John in Bruges), a fascinating narrative rendered with a miniaturist’s technique; these works make M. an artist so close to his Italian contemporaries Giovanni Bellini and Perugino. Moreover, Italian influences are certainly present in his portraits, in which, taking his cue precisely from Rogier van der Weyden (see the Portinari Portraits), he generally makes the figure stand out, shown slightly in three-quarter view, against a landscape background (Portrait of a Man at the Kaiser Friedrich in Berlin, counterpart to the Portrait of a Woman at the Louvre; Portrait of a Man at the Brussels Museum; Portrait of an Italian at the Antwerp Museum). Since there is no evidence of Antonello’s influence, it has been thought that, for these portraits, the painter may have known the sculpted busts of the Italian Quattrocento. The motifs of garlands and putti that appear in some of his later Madonnas (Florence, Uffizi; Vienna, Museum) also derive from the repertory of Italian art.
He had many pupils, and the influence of his work is felt not only in the anonymous artists contemporary with him, known as the “Master of the Legend of St. Ursula” and the “Master of the Legend of St. Lucy,” but also in the great Gérard David, who in Bruges was truly his successor. — Vedi tav. XL.
because of unity, incorporation into the one Redeemer, and adoptive sonship in relation to the same heavenly Father, it presupposes union in the same mystical Body; but this union is still obstructed, and therefore imperfect, by the outward profession of heresy or schism.
At the boundaries of the Church—the mystical Body—there is a region shrouded in darkness, in which well-disposed souls draw near to the communion of the Saints. The hierarchy does not determine
starting precisely from Rogier van der Weyden (see the Portinari Portraits), generally sets the figure, slightly in three-quarter view, against a landscape background (Portrait of a Man at the Kaiser Friedrich in Berlin, paired with the Portrait of a Woman at the Louvre; Portrait of a Man at the Brussels Museum; Portrait of an Italian at the Antwerp Museum). Since there is no evidence of Antonello’s influence, it has been thought that for these portraits the painter may have known the sculpted busts of the Italian Quattrocento. The motifs of garlands and putti appearing in some of his later Madonnas (Florence, Uffizi; Vienna, Museum) likewise derive from the repertory of Italian art.