Italy is hosting a three-month exhibition dedicated to early Renaissance master Hans Memling that opens Saturday at Rome's Scuderie del Quirinale. Reassembled altarpieces, portraits and detailed narrative paintings from collections around the world create the nucleus of 'Memling. A Flemish Painter' which continues until January 18, 2015.
The retrospective aims to chronicle the life of the Flemish painter and showcase his remarkable influence on his successors, including Italian masters. According to Holger Borchert, curator of both the exhibition and the Memling Museum in Bruges, the show aims to demonstrate that "Italian painting in Florence and elsewhere was considerably influenced by imported Flemish paintings, establishing that the work of Hans Memling played a particularly important role in this process".
Memling's career is explored through a visual narrative beginning with the artist's supposed apprenticeship to Rogier van der Weyden and exploring his relationship with international patrons. Paintings were loaned from museums and collections spanning the globe, including two triptychs whose panels are normally divided.
Contributors include the Groeninge Museum in Bruges, London's Royal Collection in London, Musée du Louvre, Frick Collection in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
One of the two reassembled triptychs is the 1467-70 Triptych of Jan Crabbe, a deposition whose panels came from Vicenza, New York's Morgan Library and Museum, and Groeninge Museum in Bruges.
The second is the 1480 Pagagotti triptych, a devotional Madonna altarpiece whose central panel was loaned from Florence's Uffizi Gallery while side panels came from London's National Gallery.
Curator Borchert showcases the Triptych of Jan Crabbe next to a 1435 Deposition by van der Weyden, to underline the influences of Memling and highlight his artistic evolution.
Additionally, the exhibition investigates Memling's influence on Italian high Renaissance artists such as Raphael, Leonardo and Domenico Ghirlandaio and explores the cultural and mercantile relationship between Italy and Flanders.
Memling's Christ of Sorrows (1478) is placed alongside a near-identical piece by Ghirlandaio to emphasize the presence of Memling's work in Florence at the end of the 15th century.
Memling's superb portraiture is showcased with his extraordinary details as seen in fabrics, tapestries, jewels and books, that provide as much insight into the Flemish artist's technical skills as to the intricate trading patterns of the day throughout Europe.
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