Saint John Altarpiece. The St John Altarpiece 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 during the building of a new apse. It is signed and dated 1479 on the original frame-its date of installation-and is today at the hospital in the Memling museum.
The altarpiece consists of five paintings-a central inner panel and two double-sided wings. Those on the reverse of wings are visible when the shutters are closed, and show the hospital donors flanked by their patron saints.
The interior has 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 other 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.
Hans Memling purchased citizenship in Bruges in late January 30, which suggests he was a recent arrival to the city. He probably came from Brussels where he had been apprenticed to Rogier van der Wey
It was commissioned in the mid-1470s in Bruges for the Old St. John's Hospital during the building of a new apse. It is signed and dated 1479 on the original frame-its date of installation-and is today at the hospital in the Memling museum.
The altarpiece consists of five paintings-a central inner panel and two double-sided wings. Those on the reverse of wings are visible when the shutters are closed, and show the hospital donors flanked by their patron saints.
The interior has 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 other 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.
Hans Memling purchased citizenship in Bruges in late January 30, which suggests he was a recent arrival to the city. He probably came from Brussels where he had been apprenticed to Rogier van der Wey
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