Description: This is a masterful and Fine Antique Flemish Old Master Portrait Oil Painting on canvas, After Han Memling's (b.1430) original Portrait of a Young Man Praying, which is currently on display in the collections of the Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence, Italy, as part of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection. This artwork likely dates to the 1880's - 1890's and is a phenomenal rendition of Memling's original 15th century masterpiece. This painting depicts a contemplative young nobleman in the act of prayer. He wears a fine coat trimmed with a leopard fur collar and reveals several gold rings on his right hand. In the distance, a serene landscape can be seen. The detail in this piece is incredible, and in a few aspects this painting almost looks better than the 15th century original (shown in photo 24.) Approximately 10 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches. There does not appear to be a signature on the front, but there is extensive provenance on the verso, including but not limited to: numbering, notations, old ink stamps, auction marks, serialized metal tag, etc. Perhaps you know more about the origin of this piece. Good - Fair condition for over a century of age, with mild - moderate edge wear, small pinhole tears, edge wear, light craquelure, and areas of old paint loss (please see photos carefully.) This painting would look marvelous in an ornate Baroque gilded frame. Priced to Sell. Acquired from an old collection in Los Angeles County, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks! About Hans Memling (1430 - 1494): Hans Memling Born: c.1430/35 - Seligenstadt, GermanyDied: 1494 - Bruges, BelgiumKnown for: Religous painting and portraits Hans Memling (c.1430/35 - 1494) was active/lived in Germany, Netherlands. Hans Memling is known for Religous painting and portraits. A major northern Renaissance artist, Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a German-born painter who moved to Flanders.Born in Seligenstadt near Frankfurt-Main, Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked under Rogier van der Weyden (c. 1455–1460) in Brussels, Duchy of Brabant. After Rogier's death in 1464, Memling became a citizen of Bruges, County of Flanders. There he became one of the leading artists, painting both portraits and diptychs for personal devotion and several large religious works, seamlessly continuing the style he learned in his youth.It is known that he owned a large stone house and by 1480 was listed among the wealthiest citizens on the city tax accounts. Sometime between 1470 and 1480 Memling married Anna de Valkenaere (died 1487), with whom he had three children.Most of Memling’s patrons were associated with religious houses, such as the Hospital of St. John in Bruges, as well as wealthy businessmen, including burghers of Bruges and foreign representatives of the Florentine Medicis and the Hanseatic League (an association of German merchants dealing abroad). For Tommaso Portinari, an agent of the Medici family, and his wife, Memling painted portraits and an unusual altarpiece that depicts more than 22 scenes from the Passion of Christ scattered in miniature in a panoramic landscape encompassing a view of Jerusalem. His best known work with extensive narration is the sumptuous Shrine of St. Ursula in the Hospital of St. John. It was commissioned by two nuns, Jacosa van Dudzeele and Anna van den Moortele, who are portrayed at one end of the composition kneeling before Mary. This reliquary, completed in 1489, is in the form of a diminutive chapel with six painted panels filling the areas along the sides where stained glass would ordinarily be placed. The narrative is the story of Ursula and her 11,000 virgins and their trip from Cologne to Rome and back. Other patrons of the same hospital commissioned Memling to paint a large altarpiece of St. John with the mystical marriage of St. Catherine to Christ as the central theme. Elaborate narratives appear behind the patron saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist painted on the side panels, while the central piece is an impressive elaboration of the enthroned Madonna between angels and saints (including Catherine) that one finds in innumerable other devotional pieces attributed to Memling.Memling's portraits, in particular, were popular in Italy. Memling's distinctive contribution to portraiture was his use of landscape backgrounds, influenced by the work of numerous late-15th-century Italian painters.The Madonna and Saints (which passed from the Duchatel collection to the Louvre), the Virgin and Child (painted for Sir John Donne and now at the National Gallery, London), and the four attributed portraits in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence (including the Portrait of Folco Portinari), show that his work was widely appreciated.The Scenes from the Passion of Christ in the Galleria Sabauda of Turin and the Advent and Triumph of Christ in the Pinakothek of Munich are illustrations of the habit in Flanders art of representing a cycle of subjects on the different planes of a single picture, where a wide expanse of ground is covered with incidents from the Passion in the form common to the action of sacred plays.The masterpiece of Memling's later years, the Shrine of St Ursula in the museum of the hospital of Bruges, is supposed to have been ordered and finished in 1480. The work shines through the delicacy of finish in its miniature figures, the variety of its landscapes and costume and general attention to details. There is later work of the master in the St Christopher and Saints of 1484 in the academy; the Newenhoven Madonna in the hospital of Bruges; a large Crucifixion, with scenes from the Passion, of 1491 from the Lübeck Cathedral (Dom) of Lübeck, now in Lübeck's St. Annen Museum.Near the close of Memling's career he was increasingly supported by his workshop. The registers of the painters' guild at Bruges give the names of two apprentices who served their time with Memling and paid dues on admission to the guild in 1480 and 1486.Memling died in Bruges. The trustees of his will appeared before the court of wards at Bruges on 10 December 1495, and records show that Memling left behind several children and considerable property. Hans Memling is recorded as a citizen in Bruges in 1465 and was the leading artist there for the rest of his life. His work is strongly influenced by Rogier van der Weyden. Memling became especially popular in the 19th century and his art is well represented in the National Gallery.Memling was born in Germany, at Seligenstadt near Aschaffenburg, and probably spent his early life in Mainz. By 1465 he had moved to Bruges, where he was evidently successful. By 1480 he had bought himself a large stone house, was taking on pupils, and had joined a confraternity.Early in his career Memling made an altarpiece for the Florentine businessman Angelo Tani. En route to Italy in 1473 this was seized by pirates and is today in Danzig. Other paintings of his appear to have been made for Italian patrons. Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc), leading Flemish painter of the Bruges school during the period of the city's political and commercial decline. The number of his imitators and followers testified to his popularity throughout Flanders. His last commission, which has been widely copied, is a Crucifixion panel from the Passion Triptych (1491).Memling, born in the region of the Middle Rhine, was apparently first schooled in the art of Cologne and then travelled to the Netherlands (c. 1455-60), where he probably trained in the workshop of the painter Rogier van der Weyden. He settled in Bruges (Brugge) in 1465; there he established a large shop and executed numerous altarpieces and portraits. Indeed, he was very successful in Bruges: it is known that he owned a large stone house and by 1480 was listed among the wealthiest citizens on the city tax accounts. Sometime between 1470 and 1480 Memling married Anna de Valkenaere (died 1487), who bore him three children.A number of Memling's works are signed and dated, and still others allow art historians to place them easily into a chronology on the basis of the patron depicted in them. Otherwise it is very difficult to discern an early, middle, and late style for the artist. His compositions and types, once established, were repeated again and again with few indications of any formal development. His Madonnas gradually become slenderer and more ethereal and self-conscious, and a greater use of Italian motifs such as putti, garlands, and sculptural detail for the settings marks the later works. His portraits, too, appear to develop from a type with a simple neutral background to those enhanced with a loggia or window view of a landscape, but these, too, may have been less a stylistic development than an adaptation of his compositions to suit the tastes of his patrons.A good example of the difficulties of dating encountered by scholars is the triptych of The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors that Memling executed for Sir John Donne (National Gallery, London), which until recently had been dated very early - around 1468 - because it was believed that the patron commissioned the work while visiting Bruges for the wedding of Charles the Bold (duke of Burgundy) to Margaret of York and that he died the following year (1469) in the Battle of Edgecote. It is now known that Sir John lived until 1503 and that it is probably his daughter Anne (born 1470 or later) who is portrayed as the young girl kneeling with her parents in the central panel, thus indicating that the painting was commissioned about 1475.Memling's art clearly reveals the influence of contemporary Flemish painters. He borrowed, for example, from the compositions of Jan van Eyck, the famed founder of the Bruges school. The influence of Dieric Bouts and Hugo van der Goes can also be discerned in his works - for example, in a number of eye-catching details such as glistening mirrors, tile floors, canopied beds, exotic hangings, and brocaded robes. Above all, Memling's art reveals a thorough knowledge of, and dependence on, compositions and figure types created by Rogier van der Weyden. In Memling's large triptych (a painting in three panels, generally hinged together) of the Adoration of the Magi (Prado, Madrid), one of his earliest works, and in the altarpiece of 1479 for Jan Floreins (Memling-Museum, Brugge), the influence of Rogier's last masterpiece, the Columba Altarpiece (1460-64; Alte Pinakothek, Munich), is especially noticeable. Some scholars believe that Memling himself may have had a hand in the production of this late work while still in Rogier's studio. He also imitated Rogier's compositions in numerous representations of the half-length Madonna with the Child, often including a pendant with the donor's portrait (the Madonna and Martin van Nieuwenhove; Memling-Museum, Brugge). Many devotional diptychs (two-panel paintings) such as this were painted in 15th-century Flanders. They consist of a portrait of the "donor" - or patron - in one panel, reverently gazing at the Madonna and Child in the other. Such paintings were for the donor's personal use in his home or travels.Most of Memling's patrons were those associated with religious houses, such as the Hospital of St John in Bruges, and wealthy businessmen, including burghers of Bruges and foreign representatives of the Florentine Medicis and the Hanseatic League (an association of German merchants dealing abroad). For Tommaso Portinari, a Medici agent, and his wife, Memling painted portraits (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City) and an unusual altarpiece that depicts more than 22 scenes from the Passion of Christ scattered in miniature in a panoramic landscape encompassing a view of Jerusalem (Galleria Sabauda, Turin). Such an altarpiece, perhaps created for new devotional practices, became very popular at the end of the 15th century.His best known work with extensive narration is the sumptuous Shrine of St Ursula in the Hospital of St John. It was commissioned by two nuns, Jacosa van Dudzeele and Anna van den Moortele, who are portrayed at one end of the composition kneeling before Mary. This reliquary, completed in 1489, is in the form of a diminutive chapel with six painted panels filling the areas along the sides where stained glass would ordinarily be placed. The narrative, which is the story of Ursula and her 11,000 virgins and their trip from Cologne to Rome and back, unfolds with charm and colourful detail but with little drama or emotion. Other patrons of the same hospital commissioned Memling to paint a large altarpiece of St John with the mystical marriage of St Catherine to Christ as the central theme (Memling-Museum, Brugge). Elaborate narratives appear behind the patron saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist painted on the side panels, while the central piece is an impressive elaboration of the enthroned Madonna between angels and saints (including Catherine) that one finds in innumerable other devotional pieces attributed to Memling.Because Memling's work was so strongly influenced by that of other painters, it often has been harshly dealt with by 20th-century critics. Yet in his own lifetime he was acclaimed. Recording his death, the notary of Bruges described him as "the most skillful painter in the whole of Christendom." HANS MEMLING One of the most sought-after Netherlandish portrait painters of his time, Memling’s meticulous attention to detail is notable in the remarkable naturalism of the sitter’s physiognomy and the texture of his velvet, fur-trimmed tunic. The young man was likely one of the many Florentine visitors to, or residents of, Bruges, several of whom commissioned portraits from the artist. It appears that shortly after it was painted, the panel was sent to Florence, where it provided inspiration to Italian artists, who deeply admired Netherlandish painting. A Madonna and Child (Louvre, Paris) painted about 1476-77 and variously attributed to Verrocchio and Ghirlandaio, includes the same landscape vista and classicizing columns. The Italianate columns, which indicate Memling’s familiarity with Italian art and would have pleased his Florentine patron, illustrate that the relationship between Northern and Southern European artists was one of reciprocal influence. HANS MEMLINGLittle is known of the artistic beginnings of this South Netherlandish painter of German origin. Memling was probably apprenticed to a painter in Cologne before he left Germany for Bruges. During his time, he was best known as the artist who domesticated religious images and who had a propensity for optical realism.Memling lived during the turbulent period of transition between the Burgundian ruling house and that of the Habsburgs. Little of this political tension however is evident in his work. His commissions came almost exclusively from the rich burghers in Bruges: the bankers, the merchants, politicians, churchmen and the occasional aristocrat. Often theses commissions came from foreigners, especially Italians, agents of the Medici bank in Bruges, who had political or financial connections with the town. Memling painted their portraits in devotional paintings or on altarpieces for their chapels in Bruges or back home. The Virgin and child was a popular subject. The National Gallery’s Virgin and Child with Donor and St Anthony, 1472, was one of them and one of the earliest dated works by Memling.The close similarity between Memling’s style and that of Rogier van der Weyden suggests that Memling probably completed his training in the latter’s studio in Brussels, where he may have worked for a while as a journeyman. Memling was mentionned as a pupil of Van der Weyden by both Vasari (1550) and Van Mander.There is speculation that Memling may have held a protected and privileged position in the town of Bruges because his name was not registered in the painters’ guild nor did he hold any public office in this city. However, neither is there anything to suggest that he held a position at court, which would have freed him from obligations to the guild.Despite these unknowns, an exceptional proportion of Memling’s oeuvre has survived. Together with Dieric Bouts and Hugo van der Goes, Memling was considered one of the most important artists working in the southern Low Countries in the 15th century.
Price: 3500 USD
Location: Orange, California
End Time: 2024-02-09T04:18:20.000Z
Shipping Cost: 25 USD
Product Images
Item Specifics
All returns accepted: ReturnsNotAccepted
Artist: After Hans Memling
Size: Small
Signed: No
Period: Historicism (1850-1900)
Title: "Portrait of a Young Man Praying"
Material: Canvas, Oil
Region of Origin: California, USA
Framing: Unframed
Subject: Cathedrals, Figures, Landscape, Men
Type: Painting
Original/Licensed Reproduction: Original
Item Height: 14 3/4 in
Style: Dutch, Portraiture, Realism, Old Master
Theme: Architecture, Art, Cities & Towns, Continents & Countries, Cultures & Ethnicities, Famous Places, Fashion, History, People, Portrait, Royalty, Social History
Features: One of a Kind (OOAK)
Production Technique: Oil Painting
Country/Region of Manufacture: Italy
Handmade: Yes
Item Width: 10 3/4 in
Time Period Produced: 1850-1899
