MEMLING, HANS

(ca. 1430-1494)

Flemish painter, born in Ger-many and initially trained in the Rhineland, probably at Cologne. He moved to Flanders, where he seems to have studied underRogier van der Weyden. Eventually he settled in Bruges, where he became highly regarded as a painter of religious scenes and portraits. His Saint John Altarpiece at Bruges, especially its central panel,The Mys-tical Marriage of St.Catherine of Alexandria, suggests the influence ofJan van Eyck, who worked in Bruges, as well as the continuing influence of van der Weyden. Memling's work was known and ad-mired in Italy, an example of the openness of Italian connoisseurs to Northern painting even at a time when their own native art was en-tering its period of greatest creativity.