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John Triptych Biography & Facts

The St John Altarpiece (sometimes the Triptych of the two Saints John or the Triptych of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist) is a large oil-on-oak hinged-triptych altarpiece completed around 1479 by the Early Netherlandish master painter Hans Memling. It was commissioned in the mid-1470s in Bruges for the Old St. John's Hospital (Sint-Janshospitaal) during the building of a new apse. It is signed and dated 1479 on the original frame – its date of installation – and is today still at the hospital in the Memling museum. The altarpiece consists of five paintings – a central inner panel and two double-sided wings. The panels on the reverse of wings are visible when the shutters are closed, and show the hospital donors flanked by their patron saints. The interior contains a central panel with the enthroned Virgin and Child flanked by saints; the left wing features episodes from the life of John the Baptist with emphasis on his beheading; the right wing shows the apocalypse as recorded by John the Evangelist, pictured writing on the island of Patmos. St John Altarpiece is one of Memling's more ambitious works, and shares near-identical scenes with two of other his works: the Donne Triptych, in London's National Gallery, and the Virgin and Child with Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Background and commission Hans Memling purchased citizenship in Bruges late in January 30, 1465, suggesting he was a recent arrival to the city. He probably came from Brussels where he had been apprenticed to Rogier van der Weyden. He became established as a painter in Bruges fairly quickly. Although it appears he was absent from the city for Charles the Bold and Margaret of York's rather extravagant 1468 wedding, art historian James Weale suggests that Memling may have travelled to England to complete a bridal portrait commissioned either by Charles the Bold or his father Philip the Good. According to Weale, Memling's position in Bruges was secured by the Dukes of Burgundy. Old St. John's Hospital (Sint-Janshospitaal) was one of four public hospitals in the city; one took in lepers, one paupers, and two – including St John's – treated men, women, and children. Established at the end of the 12th century, it was dedicated to John the Evangelist; at an unknown later date the dedication was extended to include John the Baptist. The Bruges civic authorities financed the hospital and oversaw its direction until the 1440s when a fiscal crisis resulted in decreased funding and increased supervision. The hospital brothers and sisters placed themselves under the authority of the Bishop of Tournai, Jean Chevrot, directly aligned with Philip the Good. By the 1470s the hospital masters and bursars not only averted bankruptcy, but accrued a surplus to spend on expansion. Commissioned for the new apse, work on the altarpiece was probably begun in the mid-1470s, and was almost certainly completed in 1479. The central frame is inscribed in Latin and reads; OPUS. IOHANNES MEMLING. ANNO. M. CCCC. LXXIX, The date gives clues to the identities of donors shown on the exterior panels; and because one died in 1475, scholars are confident in a start date before that year. Memling probably began work on the piece as early as 1473, when plans were made to extend the already large 240-bed infirmary, which, with two patients per bed, served about 500 people. As at the Hospices de Beaune, patients in Sint-Janshospitaal could follow the Liturgy of the Hours from their beds. The altarpiece's prestigious location, coupled with its scope and execution, secured additional commissions for Memling. The Augustinian prelates, who were allowed to own property, ordered several later works from him, including the St Ursula Shrine, the Triptych of Jan Floreins, and the Triptych of Adriaan Reins – each still located in the hospital. They are today displayed in the Memling museum, in a room adjacent to the original infirmary. Unusually, the altarpiece in retains its original frames, but the panel's have suffered from extensive overcleaning. Exterior panels The convention for exterior panels, visible when the wings were closed, was to show a pair of saints or donors gazing at saints. These deviate from that convention, depicting the donors looking directly at each other. Art historians speculate Memling emphasized the opening between the shutters with the donors's gazes, thereby directing attention to the importance of the devotional scenes visible on the insides when the winged shutters were opened. St Anthony Abbot was in the Middle Ages commonly associated with sickness and ergotism (sometimes known as "St Anthony's Fire"), but also with the concept of miraculous healing. He is shown on the left hand panel with his emblematic pig, next to St James; the two saints stand behind two kneeling male donors. The donors have been identified as Anthony Seghers, master of the hospital, and Brother James Ceuninc. Seghers joined the hospital as a brother in 1445, and by 1461 had risen to hospital master, a position he held intermittently until his death in 1475. He faces the center of the panel, flanked by his patron saint, Anthony, who leans on a tau staff with one hand and holds a bible in the other. Ceunic, a hospital brother from 1469 and bursar between 1488 and 1490, kneels to the left behind Seghers. His patron saint, James, is identifiable by his attributes of pilgrim's staff and hat, and stands behind him. The right panel shows St Agnes and St Clare standing behind the female donors, Agnes Casembrood, hospital prioress, and sister Clara van Hulson. Casembrood faces the center. She joined the hospital in 1447, became prioress in 1455, and remained in that office until her death in 1489. Her namesake, St Agnes, is identified by the lamb at her side. Van Hulson was a hospital sister from 1427 until she died in 1479; she kneels in front of St Clare who holds a monstrance. Unlike his predecessors Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, who typical painted exterior wings in grisaille, Memling presents the saints in a realistic manner. Although the donors in van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece and van der Weyden's Beaune Altarpiece are also painted realistically, they are placed within architectural niches separate from the adjacent statue-like grisaille saints. Memling breaks with that tradition in these exterior panels, but the subdued palette he uses retains some sense of grisaille. The donors are dressed in their Augustinian habits; the two men in stark black and the two women in white on black. The saints are dressed in monochromatic clothing. St James wears a light blue cloak and St Anthony's is grey. St Agnes is dressed in drab green and St Clare is also in a dark habit. Although the figures seem to be in two niches, they are enclosed in a single shallow space, with stone walls behind, trefoil arches above, and two columns adorning the outermost edges. Where the wings open.... Discover the John Triptych popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Triptych books.