Memlinc was favoured as a portraitist by Italians. The Ant werp museum has the portrait of the medallist, Niccolo Spinelli, who was engaged as a seal engraver by Charles the Bold from 1467-68. He is depicted holding a medal against a landscape background. In the Altman collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, a pair of portraits represent Thomas Portinari and his wife; in the J. P. Morgan collection is the Machiavellian "Man with a Pink," formerly in the possession of R. Kann. These f our are early pictures. The portraits of a married pair of mature age, formerly at Milan, are now divided between the Berlin and the Louvre galleries. They are full of character and expression ; and so is the portrait of an old man in the Altman col lection, New York. Three panels of equal size, one dated are in the Uffizi and at Berlin. The last is a Madonna ; the other two represent St. Benedict and a praying donor. It has been suggested that they may have been framed together. The pair in the Uffizi came from the hospital of Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. If they belong together the young donor was doubtless named Benedict, and he may be Benedetto Portinari, whose family were closely associated with Bruges and the said hospital. The portrait of a young man, probably again an Italian, in the Dun collection, has a distinct personality and a determined ex pression. Memlinc's Madonna pictures possess unusual charm. One of the earliest is the full length standing Virgin of 1472 in the Lieschtenstein collection. The Madonna in the Radziwill col lection, Berlin, is one of the finest.
The masterpiece of Memlinc's later years, a shrine containing relics of St. Ursula in the museum of the hospital of Bruges, is
fairly supposed to have been ordered and finished in 1489. The delicacy of finish in its miniature figures, the variety of its land scapes and costume, the marvellous patience with which its details are given, are all matters of enjoyment to the spectator. There is a later work of the master, a large "Crucifixion," with scenes from the Passion, of 1491, in the cathedral of Lubeck. But as we near the close of Memlinc's career we observe that his practice has become larger than he can compass alone; and, as usual in such cases, the labour of disciples is substituted for his own. Moreover it is hard to distinguish between the work which may be attributed to his studio or to his followers. Memlinc's influence is felt in the work of his contemporaries and in that of the next generation.
The trustees of his will appeared before the court of wards at Bruges on Dec. 1o, 1495, and we gather from records of that date and place that Memlinc left behind several children and a considerable property.
See A. Michiels, Memlinc: sa vie et ses ouvrages (Verviers, 1881) ; T. Gaedertz, Hans Memling and dessen Altarschrein im Dam zu Lubeck (Leipzig, 1883) ; Jules du Jardin, L'Ecole de Bruges Hans Memlinc, son temps, sa vie et son oeuvre (Antwerp, 1897) ; Ludwig Kammerer, Memling (Leipzig, 1899) ; W. H. J. Weale, Hans Memlinc ( t9oI), Hans Memlinc: Biography (Bruges, i9o1) ; Karl Voll, Memling (Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1909) ; M. Friedlander, Van Eyck zu Bruegel (1921) ; Sir Martin Conway, The Van Eycks and their Followers (1921).