The Virgin Showing the Man of Sorrows

This Virgin Showing the Man of Sorrows, around 1500, in the Royal Chapel of Granada, is attributed to Memling or his workshop. The painting entered the Spanish royal collection, where Netherlandish paintings were highly valued by Isabella of Castile and her successors. This work falls in the decades immediately around 1500, when Renaissance ideals of harmony and classical order were being synthesised across Europe. Hans Memling was the most sought-after portraitist in northern Europe in the final decades of the fifteenth century. His portrait manner combines the Flemish tradition of three-quarter bust portraiture, with plain or landscape background, with a personal quality of warmth and psychological approachability that distinguished him from the cooler precision of Jan van Eyck. His Bruges clientele — including merchants from Italy, Spain, and England as well as the local Flemish bourgeoisie — found in his portraits an image of their social aspirations combined with the dignity and specific human presence that made his likenesses memorable.

The Man of Sorrows iconography presents Christ displaying his wounds, a devotional image type designed to elicit compassion. Memling's refined technique renders the wounded body and the Virgin's grief with characteristic Netherlandish precision.