HANS MEMLING’S TRIPTYCH OF JAN CRABBE REUNITED IN LANDMARK EXHIBITION AT THE MORGAN

Completed around 1470 in Bruges, Hans Memling’s extraordinary Triptych of Jan Crabbe  was dismantled centuries ago and the parts were scattered.  The inner wings from the altarpiece are among the finest paintings owned by the Morgan Library  & Museum, where they have long been on permanent view in museum founder Pierpont  Morgan’s study. 

This exhibition—on view through January 8,  2017—is the first to explore the reconstructed  masterpiece in context. The altarpiece will be su rrounded by other paintings by Memling and his contemporaries, by a choice selection of illumi nated manuscripts from Bruges, and by a group of  Early Netherlandish drawings.

Aside from the t iptych fragments from Italy and Belgium, loans  from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fr ick Collection, and a private collection will  complement a range of works fr om the Morgan’s own holdings. 

The Crabbe triptych is a masterpiece of the  first order and shows a relatively young Memli ng demonstrating many of  the characteristic  elements of his work—crystalline  realism, spatial sophistication,  and the ability to capture the  humanity and individuality of his subjects.

THE EXHIBITION

Triptych of Jan Crabbe 

Morgan acquired the triptych’s inner wings in 1907.  They were part of an altarpiece commissioned by Jan  Crabbe, Abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Ten  Duinen, near Bruges, Belgium. On the central panel,  Memling depicted the crucifixion of Christ, with the  Virgin Mary, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Mary  Magdalene to the left of the cross. Kneeling to the  right of the cross is Jan  Crabbe, accompanied by his  name-saint St. John the Baptist and St. Bernard of  Clairvaux, the founder of the Cistercian order. The two  inner wings depict members  of the patron’s family: his  mother Anna Willemzoon with St. Anne on the left,  and his much younger half-brother Willem de Winter  with St. William on the right. The outer wings, originally visible only when the panels are closed,  feature an Annunciation scene with the Angel Gabriel  and the Virgin Mary. It is not known precisely when or why the work was dismantled, though it was not unus ual for composite pieces such as triptychs to suffer this fate. 

The Triptych of Jan Crabbe  is a fine demonstration of Memling’s extraordinary ability to capture  the essence of the human face. In particular, the left panel portrait of Anna Willemzoon is one of  the most frank and extraordinary depictions of old age from the Renaissance.   Indeed, in later years, Memling’s portraiture wo uld come to revolutionize the genre across Europe. Similarly transformative, the Annunciation scene features Gabriel and the Virgin Mary clad in white drapery and set on pedestals in niches like sculptures, but with rosy flesh tones in  their heads and hands, making them one of the earliest examples of the technique of demi-grisaille in Flemish painting.  

Triptych of Jan Crabbe in Context  

Paintings by Memling and his Contemporaries 

Several independent portrait paintings from Memling’s early and late career offer further evidence  of Memling’s extraordinary talent as a portraitist. Although Memling’s painterly style developed as he grew older, his ability to capture the essenc e of his sitters’ personalities never changed.   Memling did not work in isolation, and a painting representing the Virgin and Child with St. Anne  by a contemporary artist known as the Master of the Saint Ursula Legend provides an ideal  counterpart to the triptych with its broad  landscape and similar iconography. It shows how Memling’s production fits alongside that of other painters in Bruges, while also highlighting how his technical abilities surpassed most others. 

Manuscript Illumination in Bruges 

n the fifteenth century, Bruges was an important center for  manuscript illumination. Mem ling’s development of the demi-grisaille technique has generally been traced to his time spent in Cologne, but in fact, varieties of grisaille and demi-grisaille were  regularly used in Bruges manuscript illumination in the decades  prior to the painting of the Crabbe triptych, as will be shown with  a selection of Books of Hours from the Morgan’s rich holdings.  Conversely, the radical naturalism of Memling’s painting seems to have served as an inspiration to the manuscript painters.  Superb manuscripts from the Morgan’s collection will show that reflections of Memling’s painting technique began to appear in manuscript painting towards the  end of the fifteenth century.

Hans Memling (Flemish, ca. 1440–1494),  Portrait of a Man , ca. 1470, Oil on panel. © The Frick Collection. 

Master of  the Saint Ursula Legend (Flemish, active late 15 th  century),  Virgin and Child with St. Anne presenting Anna van Nieuwenhove , ca.  1479-83. Oil on panel. © Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection.