Christ surrounded by angels making music

Christ surrounded by angels playing music is a panel painting by Hans Memling . The work is now in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp .

Painting

Adoration of the Mystical Lamb by Jan van Eyck (excerpt)

Have received three panels of oak . But they are only part of an originally much larger altarpiece.

Christ is represented as the King of Heaven. He is surrounded by sixteen singing and music-making angels. This was part of a scene depicting the Assumption of the Virgin Mary . Mary was originally seen among the group of Christ and the angels. This explains why Christ looks down and reads “Mary - Jesus” on the robes of the angels. It is unknown when and why the painting was mutilated and where the lost parts have gone. But the “remainder” is also an example of first-class panel painting in the late 15th century from the Netherlands. For this work, Memling was inspired by Jan van Eyck 's Adoration of the Mystical Lamb , a work that is half a century older than Christ surrounded by angels making music and on which 14 angels in magnificent robes surround the adored lamb.

Christ surrounded by angels making music is also an important musical historical testimony to musical life at the turn of the 15th to the 16th century, because it shows what musical instruments looked like back then and how music was performed.

history

The winged altar comes from the church of the Monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera , today: Nájera in the Autonomous Community and Province of La Rioja in Spain . At the turn of the 15th to the 16th century, the monastery was in a phase of intensive structural remodeling and redesign. This also included the assignment to Hans Memling to create an altarpiece. At that time he was at the height of his work and this assignment was one of the largest and most important for him. Spanish merchants based in Bruges probably brokered the contract.

The paintings have been in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp since 1895 . The altarpiece in the monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera had not been used as the center of the altar structure since the end of the 17th century, which was then replaced by a baroque high altar .

Web links

Commons : Christ surrounded by angels  making music - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Christ surrounded by angels playing music on the homepage of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts

Remarks

1. ↑ Dimensions:
   • middle plate: 170 × 213 cm
   • left plate: 170 × 232 cm
   • right plate: 170 × 230 cm.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Inventory numbers 778, 779, 780.
2. ↑ Homepage of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
3. ↑ Homepage of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
4. ↑ Homepage of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
5. ↑ Homepage of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
6. ↑ See: here .