Memling to Rubens: Two Centuries of Reinvention

Clear and useful lecture at the Wallace Collection tracing Flemish art form Memling to Rubens.

Richard Williams from the Royal Collection Trust used three works from the Wallace Collection, Memling’s “Angle with a Sword”, Pieter Pourbus’s “Allegory of True Love” and Rubens’ “The Holy Family with St Elizabeth and John the Baptist” to anchor the lecture over three sessions.

He started with discussing what the Flemish tradition was and then looked at how Memling worked within this but also took it further. He looked at how Italian patrons commissioned work from him.

He moved into the 16th century and looked at how Gossaert was influenced by his trip to Rome in 1508 with Philip of Burgundy. We looked at how more Italian art was appearing in Brussels such as the Raphael cartoons which were in the city at the time with the tapestry weavers and how this influenced artists. That session ended by looking at the Pourbus painting and the Italian and Humanist influences in it.


The talk ended by looking at Rubens draws from Italian art but brings the Flemish tradition to it and Williams formed the argument that he would not have been able t do this without the innovations of Gossaert.

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