MASP

Memling was a student and collaborator of Roger van der Weyden (1400-1464), in Brussels. He then moved to Bruges, where he directed a very active studio with many artists. Possessing extraordinary technical mastery, he created an original style that combined the characteristics of his former teacher with those of Jan van Eyck (1390-1441): compositional balance and the intensity of color and expression. In The Mourning Virgin with St. John and the Holy Women from Galilee (1485-90), we see Mary at the front, along with St. John the Evangelist and the pious (devout) women present at Calvary, according to the writers of the Gospels: Mary Magdalene, Mary of Clopas, and Salome, the wife of Zebedee. The group of figures, like a choir in classical theater, is watching the main action, responding to it as a group. The work in MASP’s collection was part of a retable formed by two panels. The second panel, today lost, most likely depicted Christ’s descent from the cross, as we see in another work by Memling at the Capilla Real de Granada in Spain (1494). In 2013, the museum received the donation of a painting with this theme, executed by a follower of the master in the first half of the 16th century, perhaps inspired by the original, lost work.

— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017

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The theme of The Virgin Lamenting with St. John and the Holy Women of Galilee – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the Younger and of Joseph, and the mother of the two sons of Zebedee – is based on Matthew (XVII, 56-66), with variations in Mark (XV, 40), and Luke (VIII, 2-3). The theme is usually taken up together with the lamentation over the figure of Christ taken down from the Cross and here effectively counterpoints the latter, since the Masp painting is possibly the right side of a separated diptych known as the Lachovsky-Bardi Diptych, possibly made up originally on the left by a slightly larger (54 x 43 cm). Deposition from the Cross. This work, once in the collection of J. Braz (St. Petersburg) and then in the collections of Mme. Napoléon Magne, F. Lachovsky, and D. Sickles, in Paris, was sold at auction in New York in 1939 and reappeared in 1957 in the Schaeffer Gallery in New York, finally returning to the hands of one of its previous owners, D. Sickles in Paris, its last known resting place. A copy of this half of the diptych, now in the Groeningenmuseum in Bruges, has on one side the depiction of St. Andrew bearing the arms of the Genoese merchant Andrea della Costa (Van Schoute 1963, p. 70; De Vos 1994, pp. 152-153; Natale 1995, p. 162). Another copy is in the Bargello Museum in Florence. There is also another work that is a faithful copy of the Lachovsky-Bardi Diptych, the triptych by an anonymous Fleming in the Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini in Genoa (Natale 1995, n. 59, pp. 161-163). The existence of a Genoese coat of arms on a copy of the Groeningenmuseum Deposition from the Cross, the existence of another copy of the same scene in the Bargello, and finally the presence in the Palazzo Durazzo-Pallavicini of the above-mentioned triptych, lead us to believe that Memling painted the Lachovsky-Bardi diptych for a Genoese client, which would not be at all surprising given the many and constant contacts between Bruges and that great Italian trade center. The fact that, in contrast to its pendant, the Masp section is in good condition suggests that the two sides of this work, that was surely originally intended for the altar of a private chapel, were divided in the distant past. Unlike Faggin, (1969, p. 98, n. 27b), Camesasca (1987, p. 46), Carvalho de Magalhães (1995, p. 81), and Friedländer (1937) put the Masp piece on the left and not on the right of the diptych, following the logical analogy with the diptych that belonged to Queen Isabel the Catholic in the Royal Chapel in Granada, which is very similar in composition to ours. As Friedländer (1928 and 1950, p. 71) and Baldass (1942) have pointed out, both paintings are freely based on a diptych by Hugo van der Goes (Wildenstein Gallery, New York and the Staatliche Museen, Berlin), perhaps the only example, as Faggin (1969, p. 97) mentions, of a clear connection between the two artists. Carvalho de Magalhães (1995) suggests the unlikely idea that the derivation was the other way round. An old copy of the Masp painting in Schleissheim (Bayerische Kunstgemäldesammlungen, inv. wAF 670), is today in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Friedländer included it in his catalogue of Memling’s work in 1928 (n. 13b) when he was still unaware of the original in São Paulo. Camesasca (1987), De Vos (1994), and Carvalho de Magalhães (1995) analyze the differences in scenic and dramatic effect between the Granada version, for which Friedländer suggested a date of about 1485, and the São Paulo painting, for which various dates have been suggested. Friedländer tends towards a joint date of around 1485 for both versions, while De Vos believes that the Masp work predates the Granada one. Baldass (1942), on the other hand, is persuaded to put the São Paulo version at the end of Memling’s career, just prior to 1491, on account of marked similarities with the Lübeck altar panel, for whose “crisp characterization of types” according to the German critic, the Masp painting “has already prepared us”. Camesasca seems to agree with Baldass’ idea of preferring a later date of the 1480s, given “the desire for synthesis that seems to reveal itself in Memling’s last pictures”. Indeed, in contrast to the compassionate reserve of the Spanish version, there is in the São Paulo work a clear emphasis on the expressive interplay of the hands which seems to stem from a desire to re-create the balance of the composition imitating the energy of the pantomime gestures of sacred drama. The structure and the rhythms of composition resulting from this new balance are thus more open and the differences between the planes much more scenographic.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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