The passage of the mountains by the pious cohort would enable Memling, had he crossed the Alps, to represent with accuracy the snow-clad mountains on the road. But he did not do so; and Bâle appears to be the farthest point he visited. Those who think he went to Italy solve this difficulty by supposing that he went through France.1

2

Soon after the completion of the Châsse, or, as the Flemings call it, the Rive, Memling received commissions from another hospital of Bruges, that of St. Julian. The picture of St. Christopher in the Bruges Academy, though dated 1484, may have been painted later, as the signature has been evidently tampered with. The picture is amongst the finest of the master, though considerably damaged and retouched. There were others still in Bruges in 1780, which show that Memling was not exclusively employed by the Hospital of St. John. Pierre Bultynck, of the corporation of curriers, obtained, in 1480, a copy of the Adoration of the Magi, of 1479, and placed it in the Curriers' Chapel in Notre Dame of Bruges. The portraits of Pierre Bultynck and his wife Catherine Van Ryebeck were on the wings. The curriers sold the picture, which, when last heard of, in 1780, belonged to Mr. Van Cock, a picture dealer of Antwerp.3

In 1487 he again produced a dyptic for the Hospital of St. Julian at Bruges, ordered by one Martin Van Nieuwenhoven, who became sheriff of the city in 1492.*

Numerous pictures by Juan Flamenco have caused

1 Michiels, vol. ii. p. 295.

2 Catalogue of the Hospital, p. 12. Michiels, vol. ii. p. 309. * Catalogue of the Hospital, pp. 13, 14.

Ibid. pp. 12, 13.

1

Haus Memling to be considered the same person as that painter. Antonio Ponz, in his Viage de España, remarked five pictures in the choir of Los Legos, in the convent of Carthusians at Miraflores, representing episodes from the life and martyrdom of St. John the Baptist. They had long been attributed to Lucas of Leyden. Ponz discovered, in the records of the monastery, that the "Bautismo" (baptism) in the choir of Los Legos was commenced by Master Juan Flamenco, in the year 1496, in the convent itself, and finished by him in 1499. Without counting the board and lodging of the painter, it cost the sum of 27,735 maravedis. These pictures have been lost; nowhere have we seen five episodes from the life of St. John the Baptist. At Berlin there are three pictures representing scenes of that description, and at Francfort a copy of the same. The pictures at Berlin were taken, it appears, from the very convent of which we speak ; but they are works of Van der Weyden. It is impossible, in consequence, to tell whether Juan Flamenco is the painter of the Hospital of Bruges. In truth, the number of Flemish painters with the name of Juan is very large. If, as Mme. Schopenhauer states, 'Memling is the painter of the Burgos convent, he might, with similar propriety, be called the painter of Palencia; for a chapel in the Cathedral of that town possessed eleven paintings, the work of Juan de Flandes, who, in 1509, according to the records, bound himself to finish them in three years for 500 ducats. But the latest writer on Flemish painters disbelieves the fact of Memling's journey into Spain on other

2

1 Ponz, Viage de España, vol. xii. p. 50.

2 Kunstblatt, Passavant, No. 61, 1843.

grounds. He thinks he may have painted all the pictures mentioned in the Viage, and sent them to Spain. He never went to Burgos; for a charming dyptic, painted for the convent of the Dunes, in 1499, by Memling, is a proof that he was still in Flanders at that time,—the very period when, according to the records of Miraflores, the picture of Los Legos was completed. But the charming dyptic of 1499 is not by Memling, as any one may see by visiting the Antwerp Gallery. The only proof of the picture's authenticity is its execution, and that is not in Memling's manner. And besides, there is no doubt, from the records already referred to, that in some portion of 1499 Memling had ceased to exist.3 The numerous pictures which remain of him, on which no signature or date is found, but which are still recognisable by their touch and mode of colour and design, would tend to show that Memling was not a libertinę, and that the hand of the man who traced those delicate and highly-finished compositions was not that of a soldier. It must be doubted that Memling ever served as such. He seems, indeed, to have enjoyed the patronage of many noble families. The Cliffords, painted in the altar-piece at Chiswick, are his handiwork, not that of John Van Eyck. The panels in the Galleries of Vienna, Munich, Florence, and Turin, all prove that the painter's time was long and patiently employed in painting, and not in fighting.

1 Michiels, vol. ii. pp. 311, 312,

2 No. 28, Antwerp Catalogue,
3 Vide p. 244.

CHAPTER XIV.

MEMLING'S MASTERPIECES.

THE great characteristic feature of Memling was his grace and poetry of delineation. His pictures were lyrics, not epics, like Van Eyck's; but Memling had a master who sought the graceful-not, like John Van Eyck, a teacher of ascetic tendencies. Memling, under Van der Weyden's teaching, succeeded in perfecting, or in realizing much that was but in part achieved, and more that was only promised, by his master. The tall and rigid forms of Roger retained their height, but gained in elegance with Memling. Van der Weyden's mazes of angular drapery became simple and flowing in the hands of his pupil; he perfected his teacher, in fact, where improvement was possible. His groups became highly symmetrical; and his landscapes were filled with distant episodes. He was so elegant and simple in the broader features of the art, his landscapes were so autumnal and warm in tone, that the faults of studied symmetry and over-crowding can scarcely be said to have been obtrusive. In truth, he preserved to a greater extent than Van der Weyden the effect of space and distance, showing that he possessed a truer sentiment of colour and aërial perspective. In the linear portion of the science, however, Memling made no pro

gress beyond the point attained by his master, and did not even advance to that which had been gained by John Van Eyck. In this essential part of art-education-the indispensable guide of every student-he gained no perfection, leaving the science in the same imperfect state and uncertainty in which it remained under the pupils of the Van Eycks. Although he failed to seize, from amongst the various models with which he was acquainted, a noble or ideal type, a soft, meek beauty is to be found in most of his delineations; and he showed an elevated taste in depicting the Madonna, with her yellow hair sweeping down her shoulders, fastened to her high and noble forehead with a diadem, or turning round the ear in graceful locks-her grave and lofty mien expressing dignity and religion.

As for the Infant Saviour, though his naked form assumed the elongated shape and somewhat awkward limbs of those produced by Van der Weyden, he succeeded in imparting to him a more natural flesh, a better colour, a nobler and happier cast of countenance, and finer eyes and forehead than his master, without that look of age for which Van Eyck was known. The men whom Memling painted were merely men-intelligent and truthful portraits, but nothing more. He was skilful in contrasting their expressions, and depicted quite as ably the grave asceticism of St. John the Baptist as the soft and hopeful features of St. John the Evangelist; but his talent was more conspicuous in female than in male portraiture.

The method of colour peculiar to Memling, exhibited especially in his latest works, leads us to think that he studied John Van Eyck in that portion of his art with