In the midst of his court duties, Jan found time to go on with the great altar-piece, which he completed in 1432. A few years later, he produced what is perhaps his finest religious painting next to the Adoration, the Madonna of the Canon van der Paele. This picture represents the Virgin and Child enthroned in a stately basilica, probably the cathedral of St. Donatian at Bruges. In the foreground, on the right stands St. George, on the left St. Donatian. On the Virgin's left, upon his knees, is George van der Paele, Canon of St. Donatian, the donor of the painting.
This Virgin and St. Donatian by Jan van Eyck would make one think, says Fromentin, "that the art of painting had said its last word, and that from the first hour. And yet, without changing either theme or method, Memling was going to say something more."
A tradition cherished by the Flemings has it that Hans Memling, in the year 1477, dragged himself, sick and needy, to the gates of St. John's Hospital in Bruges, where he was tenderly nursed back to health, and that, in gratitude, he painted for the hospital the pictures that have ever since been its pride. This may or may not be true, but a detail in the Marriage of St. Catherine seems designed to confirm the legend. It represents a man dropping exhausted in the street, who is then revived by some cooling drink, and afterward borne to the hospital. We can not but feel that the artist is giving us here an incident from his personal history.
The little we know of Memling's life may be told in very few words. In 1450, he painted the portrait of Isabella, Duchess of Burgundy, whose likeness Jan van Eyck had journeyed to Portugal to make twenty-two years before. After the death of Philip the Good, no doubt he was court painter to Charles the Rash and in the year of the latter's defeat and death at Nancy took refuge in Bruges. Here he married and came into possession of some property through his wife, he painted his greatest works, and died in 1495.
In the quaint chapter-room of the old hospital, itself dating from the thirteenth century, Memling's compositions found an appropriate setting. Here was the great triptych of the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, an altar-piece for the high altar of the church connected with the hospital; two smaller triptychs, one of the Three Kings, the other a Pietà; the portrait of Mary Moreel, and a diptych ordered by Martin van Nieuwenhoven, on which is Memling's finest piece of portraiture, the likeness of the donor. "The man himself is no very superb specimen of humanity; he has a bright and pleasant though rather foolish face; but such as he is Memling has caught the idea of him, and placed him visibly and knowably on the panel.... Its colouring is unusual and most beautiful. The textures of the garments are superb, and not only are the little landscapes seen through the open windows full of the charm that Memling always threw into his backgrounds, but the charm extends to the interior of the room, with its stained glass windows, paneled walls, looking-glass and other pieces of furniture."[7]