![Saint Veronica [obverse] by Hans Memling](https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Redirect/file/Hans_Memling_-_St_John_and_Veronica_Diptych_(right_wing)_-_WGA14926.jpg&width=1200)
Saint Veronica [obverse]
Hans Memling·c. 1470/1475
Historical Context
Memling's Saint Veronica from around 1470-75 depicts the woman who, according to medieval legend, wiped Christ's face with her veil during the Via Crucis, the cloth miraculously retaining his image — the Veronika (true image). Saint Veronica was the patroness of painters and cloth-workers, her legend associating the sacred image with the mechanics of physical contact and material impression. Memling renders her with the warmth and psychological presence he brought to all his devotional figures — the saint holding the vera icon with composed reverence — creating an image that was simultaneously a devotional focus and a meditation on the relationship between divine presence and material image.
Technical Analysis
Memling's oil on panel technique achieves extraordinary refinement in rendering the transparent veil and the holy face upon it, with the saint's serene features modeled through subtle tonal transitions and luminous glazes.
Provenance
Probably Bernardo Bembo, Venice or Verona [d. 1519]. Probably his son, Cardinal Pietro Bembo [1470-1547], Padua and Rome.[1] Nicolai Nikitich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1773-1828], near Florence;[2] his son, Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov, Prince of San Donato [1812-1870], near Florence; (his sale, Paris, 3 March 1870, no. 204, repro., etching by Rajou). Private collection, Italy, until c. 1928.[3] (Matthiesen Gallery, Berlin). (Paul Cassirer, Berlin).[4] Baron Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza [1875-1947], Schloss Rohoncz, Hungary, and later, Villa Favorita, Lugano-Castagnola, Switzerland, by 1930;[5] on consignment 1950 with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York); purchased 1951 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; [6] gift 1952 by exchange to NGA. [1] Letter of 31 August 1502 from Carlo Bembo, son of Bernardo, to Isabella d'Este, accompanying a loan of paintings to her in Mantua. The letter was published by Vittorio Cian, "Pietro Bembo e Isabella d'Este Gonzaga. Note e documenti," _Giornale storico della letteratura italiana_ 9 (1887), 85-86. Bernardo Bembo was at that time away from Venice on a diplomatic mission. Carlo Bembo died in 1503. For the Bembo family see _Dizionario biografico degli italiani_ (Rome, 1966), 8: 103-109 and 133-151. Approximately thirty years later (after Bernardo's death), Marcantonio Michiel's notes on what seems to be this diptych name the owner as the poet Pietro Bembo, another son of Bernardo: "The little painting with two wings of Saint John the Baptist clothed, with a lamb that sits in a landscape on one side, and Our Lady with the little Child on the other [side] in another landscape, by the hand of Hans Memling, year 1470, this being true." D. Jacopo Morelli, _Notizia d'opere di disegno_ (Bassano, 1800), 17, and Theodor von Frimmel, _Der Anonimo Morelliano (Quellenschriften für Kunstgeschichte und Kunsttechnik_) N.F. I (Vienna, 1896), 86. Pietro Bembo's paintings were then in Padua. Jennifer Fletcher, "Marcantonio Michiel: his friends and collection," _Burlington Magazine_ 123 (1981), 461 dates Michiel's notice of Pietro Bembo's collection in the 1520's or early 1530's. [2] According to the catalogue of the Demidov sale, 3 March 1870, no. 204. [3] According to Max J. Friedländer, _Die altniederländishe Malerei_, 14 vols. (Berlin and Leiden, 1928), 6: 125. [4] According to Friedländer, in _Unknown Masterpieces in Public and Private Collections_, ed. by W.R. Valentiner, (London, 1930), unpaginated, no. 27. [The list of references published in the NGA systematic catalogue entry erroneously cites no. 37 rather than no. 27.] [5] According to the exhibition catalogue, _Sammlung Schloss Rohoncz_, Munich, Neue Pinakothek, 1930, no. 222. [6] M. Knoedler & Co. Records, accession number 2012.M.54, Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles: Commission book no. 4, p. 143, no. CA 3725; Sales book no. 16, p. 310 (copies in NGA curatorial files, see also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1908).
