Musée Communal. BRUGES. 3. Route. 39

former cathedral). The figures, half lifesize, are strongly realistic.
The Madonna is the ugliest ever painted by Jan van Eyck, the
Child, with its aged expression (meant to indicate the presence
of Deity?) is lean and unattractive, and St. George, in spite of his
brilliant armour, has much the appearance of a rude common
soldier. The portrait of the donor, however, is masterly, and
St. Donatian is a dignified personage. — To the right is an early
reduced copy of Jan van Eyck’s Head of Christ in the museum at
Berlin, with a spurious inscription. On the left, Jan van Eyck,
“Portrait of his wife (1439), evidently unflattered, but admirably
finished and faithful in every detail. Opposite, Hugo van der Goes,
*Death of the Virgin, one of the foremost of early-Flemish works
in dramatic vitality, depth of expression, variety of gesture, and
knowledge of anatomy (Friedlander) ; P. Claeissens the Younger,
Allegorical representation of the Treaty of Tournai (1584); In the
style of Gerard David, Preaching of John the Baptist and Baptism
of Christ, two miniature paintings on parchment.

In the third section: Memling, *Triptych (1484), from the chapel
of St. Christopher in the Church of St. Jacques. In the central
picture is St. Christopher, with a blue garment and ample red
cloak, looking up with astonishment at the Infant Christ sitting on
his shoulders, as if unable to comprehend the continual increase
of his burden. In a grotto is the hermit, leaning on a stick, with
a lantern in his hand. To the left is St. Maurus reading, to the
right St. Egidius with the doe. On the left wing is Burgomaster
Willem Moreel, the donor, with his five sons and his patron
St. William, on the right wing, Barbara Viaenderberghe, his wife,
with eleven daughters and St. Barbara. This Picture occupies a
high rank among Memling’s works. The heads of the three saints
in the central picture are of great beauty, and the reflection of the

   

     

 

 

 

 

  

 

rocky bank in the water is admirably rendered. — Jean Provost,
Last Judgment, with portraits of donors on both sides, an excellent
work of 1525. — On the end-wall: Gerard David, The sentence of
Camb

 

8 against the unjust judge Sisamnes (after Herodotus), in
two pictures. The first picture represents the bribery in the back-
ground, and the sentence of the king in the foreground; the second
the executioners flaying Sisamnes in the foreground, and the son
of Sisamnes, seated as his father’s successor ov the judgment
seat on which hangs the skin of the latter, in the background.
Both pictures (completed in 1498) are boldly painted, with a
brownish tone of colouring, and admirably finished. Most of the
heads exhibit a marked individuality, and the hands are drawn
with perfect accuracy. — Between these two pictures: Gerard David,
“Triptych (after 1500). In the central picture the Baptism of Christ,
in a charming landscape; on the left wing the donor Jean des
Trompes and his son, with their patron St. John the Evangelist;
on the right wing Elizabeth van der Meersch, the first wife of the