More Art in Saint John's Hospital and the Memling Museum

The Memling Museum is located in the former wards and church of Saint John's Hospital. And a few more pieces of religious art displayed here are worth mentioning, especially because our local tour guide, Daniella, was so impassioned and eager to share details about them.

One was the gilded oak shrine built especially for the mortal remains of Saint Ursula and decorated with paintings by Memling. It was brought to the church in 1489. Ursula, yet another Christian martyred by the ancient Romans, became a sensation in the Middle Ages when builders in Cologne, Germany unearthed a huge pile of bones believed to belong to her and her 11,000 slaughtered cohorts.

 
The shrine, carved of wood and covered with gold, looks like a miniature Gothic church (similar to the hospital's church). Memling was asked to fill in the little reproduction's stained-glass windows with six arch-shaped paintings describing Ursula's well-known legend. Daniella circled us around the shrine while explaining the story. Most people couldn't read in the Middle Ages, of course, so they received their lessons from paintings and drawings.

The other piece of art that Daniella was passionate about was Memling's "Portrait of a Young Woman" painted in 1480. Memling's bread-and-butter at the time were portraits created for families of wealthy merchants, especially those visiting from Italy and Portugal, and this is the only portrait of an individual woman by the artist to have survived. The young woman looks out of the frame as if she were looking out a window, with her hands resting on the sill and fingertips sticking over--in a trompe-l'oeil technique, a process frequently applied by Memling.

Her simple-looking clothes were actually high-class in their day and the dark damask dress is brightened by a red sash and detachable white collar. The transparent veil does not hide her hairline, which is shaved, nor her plucked brows which were done to get that clean, high-forehead look--very popular at the time and signifying her family's wealth. This is also apparent from the jewelry she wears--a gem-encrusted pendant cross and no fewer than seven gold rings.

So, who is she? The sign next to the painting identifies her as Sibylla (or Sibyl) of Sambetha on account of a scrolled inscription on the frame; but the sitter is unknown. She remains a mystery, her face unreadable and vacant. Rick Steves believes she's thinking, "It's time for a waffle." And Sam and I, in fact, did get a fancy waffle later that day at our favorite café in Jan Van Eyck Plein.