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Presented as a minor artist for many years, Memling (c. 1433-1494) was not a court painter but a painter of the bourgeoisie. Forgotten during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Memling is today considered one of the greatest fifteenth-century Northern European painters, thanks to the perfect balance between realism and concern for idealisation in his portraits. His compositions, frequently diptychs, triptychs or altarpieces, display a virtuosity comparable to that of Van Eyck. His taste for detail and precise drawing as well as his technical mastery and sense of composition are brought together perfectly in such magnificent works as The Last Judgement, The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine and The Seven Joys of the Virgin. Using the most representative paintings of Memling's œuvre, this work highlights, through the finesse of his subjects' faces and the sobriety of their poses imposed by the canons of the time, the complex virtuosity of this important artist.
