On easels at the end, 255. Attributed to Memling: **Exquisite Madonna and Child in a church. Our Lady, arrayed as Queen of Heaven, with a pot of lilies before her, stands in the nave of a lovely early Gothic cathedral, with a later Decorated apse, and admirable rood-screen. Every detail of the tiles, the crown, the screen, and the robe, as well as Our Lady’s hair and hands, should be closely looked into. This is one of the loveliest pictures here. It is a very reduced copy from one by Jan van Eyck at Berlin: the church is that of the Abbey of the Dunes near Furnes. Its attribution to Memling has been disputed: Conway believes it to be by a follower. In any case, it is lovely.
256. **Companion panel, of the donor, a Cistercian Abbot of the Dunes, in a sumptuous room, half bed-chamber, half study, with a beautiful fireplace and fire. He kneels at his prayers, having deposited his mitre on a cushion beside him, and laid his crozier comfortably by the fireplace. Creature comforts are not neglected on the side-board. Here also every decorative detail should be closely examined. These are two of the very finest works of the School of Memling. Probably the Abbot admired Jan van Eyck’s Madonna, painted for a predecessor, and asked for a copy, with himself in adoration on the other wing of the diptych.
At the back, on a revolving pivot,
530, 531. Christ blessing, and a Cistercian Canon in adoration. As usual, the outer panels are less brilliant in colouring than the inner. Notice the Alpha and Omega and the P. and F. (for Pater and Filius) on the curtain behind the Saviour. These works are by an inferior hand.
The other easel has a fine (208, 209, 210) *Lucas van Leyden: Adoration of the Magi, with fantastic elongated figures. Note the ruined temple. The other features will now be familiar. Lucas’s treatment is peculiar. L., St. George and the Dragon. The saint has broken his lance and attacks the fearsome beast with his sword. In the background, the Princess Cleodolind and landscape. R., The donor, in a rich furred robe, and behind him, St. Margaret with her dragon. At the back, 181, wings, by the same, with a peculiar Annunciation (the wings being open, reversed in order). Between them has been unwisely inserted an Ecce Homo by Gossaert.
Now, go straight through Rooms H, F, and E, to three rooms en suite, the last of which is
Room A,
containing the Transitional Pictures. (It is usual to skip these insipid works of the intermediate age, and to jump at once from the School of Van Eyck to the School of Rubens—I think unwisely—for Rubens himself can only properly be appreciated as the product of an evolution, by the light of the two main influences which affected him—his Flemish masters, and his Italian models, Veronese and Giulio Romano.) Begin at the far end, near the lettered doorway, and note throughout the effort to imitate Italian art; the endeavour at classical knowledge; and the curious jumble of Flemish and Tuscan ideas. But the Flemish skill in portraiture still continues.
698. Good portrait of Giles van Schoonbeke, by P. Pourbus.
Next to it, 103, Martin De Vos, the Elder: St. Anthony the Abbot, accompanied by his pig and bell, and his usual tempters, burying the body of St. Paul the Hermit, whose grave two lions are digging. To the R., hideous Flemish devils, grotesquely horrible. Above, phases of the Temptation of St. Anthony.