Hans Memling from Bruges, Belgium, died on this day August 11 in 1494. Besides producing the standard devotional paintings, he also became one of the most sought-after Netherlandish portrait painters. He invented an unique and totally new style of portrait, with a landscape in the background, as if the sitter is portrayed outside or in front of a window.
Memling’s clientele was quite international. Bruges had many visitors from Florence, Tuscany, as the Italians and the Flemish were partners in textile trading and banking. The Medici family even had their permanent representatives in Bruges. These wealthy merchant guys with haircuts fashionable in Florence, asked to be portrayed against a Flemish background.
The portraits were shipped to Florence and many of these are now in Italian museums. Already a few years after the first Memling portraits were sent home to Florence, painters from Tuscany started to use similar Flemish backgrounds in their own paintings. Memling is the perfect example of the influence of Netherlandish art on the Italian Renaissance. Memling revolutionized Italian painting.
