A social history of the fifteenth-century German painter’s influence.
Emigrating from southern Germany in the late fifteenth century, painter Hans Memling sought success in the vibrant commercial hub of Bruges. He found an audience, not among the nobility or clergy, but in the newly emerging urban middle class: bankers, financiers, politicians, and artisans. His work, therefore, reached a diverse community across Europe—in Castile, England, Genoa, Bologna and Florence. This book explores the social and material aspects of Memling’s career and workshop as a window into Bruges’s rise as an early modern commercial hub, rife with international trade, factional politics, artisanal guilds, devotional conflict, and a burgeoning middle-class clientele.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“Hans Memling and the Merchants provides a fascinating account of the day-to-day life of a fifteenth-century artist working in one of the most economically vibrant cities in Europe. Based on meticulous archival research, Mitzi Kirkland-Ives lays out the organization of a major painting workshop, reveals the economic routes that brought artists’ materials to the city and places art into the context of the lives of the many businessmen who formed the bulk of Memling’s patronage. Detailed and accessible, this book provides a perfect companion for students interested in both the means of production and the meanings behind early Netherlandish paintings.” — Susan Maxwell, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
“Here we meet Hans Memling and his art fully within the world that made them: the affluent, highly cosmopolitan Bruges of the later fifteenth century. Mitzi Kirkland-Ives has written a vivid, deeply informed account of the strategies, striving and acumen – of artist and patrons alike – that enabled an immigrant painter to build a sterling career serving eager clients from across Europe.” — Alfred Acres, author of ‘Jan van Eyck within His Art’
Review
“Hans Memling and the Merchants provides a fascinating account of the day-to-day life of a fifteenth-century artist working in one of the most economically vibrant cities in Europe. Based on meticulous archival research, Mitzi Kirkland-Ives lays out the organization of a major painting workshop, reveals the economic routes that brought artists’ materials to the city and places art into the context of the lives of the many businessmen who formed the bulk of Memling’s patronage. Detailed and accessible, this book provides a perfect companion for students interested in both the means of production and the meanings behind early Netherlandish paintings.” — Susan Maxwell, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh
“Here we meet Hans Memling and his art fully within the world that made them: the affluent, highly cosmopolitan Bruges of the later fifteenth century. Mitzi Kirkland-Ives has written a vivid, deeply informed account of the strategies, striving and acumen – of artist and patrons alike – that enabled an immigrant painter to build a sterling career serving eager clients from across Europe.” — Alfred Acres, author of ‘Jan van Eyck within His Art’
About the Author
Mitzi Kirkland-Ives is professor of art history and visual culture at Missouri State University. Her books include In the Footsteps of Christ: Hans Memling’s Passion Narratives and the Devotional Imagination in the Early Modern Netherlands.
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