Music-making Angels

This panel of Music-making Angels, around 1480, in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, is part of a multi-panel altarpiece. Angels playing instruments were standard elements in Netherlandish altarpiece programs, their heavenly music creating an auditory dimension for the visual devotion Hans Memling brought serene, refined beauty to Flemish devotional painting, becoming the leading artist in Bruges after the death of van der Weyden Oil on canvas, increasingly preferred over panel in the sixt

Each angel plays a distinct instrument, rendered with documentary precision that provides evidence of 15th-century musical instruments. The richly colored robes and gilded backgrounds create a vision of celestial splendor.