This is the central panel of a small triptych (a painting in three parts), probably commissioned by Sir John Donne in the late 1470s. In it, he kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child, facing his wife Elizabeth and one of their daughters. They are accompanied by their patron saints Catherine and Barbara, and Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist appear on the side panels (also in the National Gallery’s collection).
Sir John’s nose was enlarged during the course of painting, and rapid, hatched brushstrokes indicate shadows and stubble. His head seems to have been painted rapidly and from life. Lady Donne initially looked very like the youthful Saint Barbara but she was made – presumably – more realistic in the course of painting, with thinner lips and a sharper nose. It seems that Memling first painted an idealised head and changed it either when he met Lady Donne or was supplied with better information by her husband.
This is the central panel of a small triptych (a painting in three parts) probably commissioned by the welshman Sir John Donne of Kidwelly in the late 1470s. The wings are also in the National Gallery’s collection: Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the Evangelist.
The Virgin and Christ Child are seated beneath a canopy and in front of a cloth of honour, with an Anatolian carpet at the Virgin’s feet. On the left, an angel dressed in a dalmatic and holding a viol offers an apple to Christ. On the right, a second angel dressed in an alb plays a portative organ. In the foreground kneel the donors: Sir John Donne, his wife Elizabeth Hastings and one of their daughters, identifiable from the coats of arms on the capitals of the columns behind the angels. Their patron saints, Saint Catherine of Alexandria and Saint Barbara, present them to the Virgin and Child. Saint Catherine, who wears the ‘robe royale’ of a princess, stands on the wheel on which she was tortured. In her right hand she holds the sword with which she was executed, its blade also decorated with wheels. Saint Barbara holds her emblem, the tower in which she was kept prisoner. Both were widely revered in the British Isles and the Low Countries: Catherine was the protectress of the dying, Barbara of those in danger of sudden death.
The figures are in a sort of loggia (an open-sided gallery or room) with richly coloured marble columns. The loggia gives way to a landscape where there is a castle, a bridge and a watermill. A man carrying a pole crosses the bridge, while the miller or his servant unloads a sack from a donkey’s back. On the right, a cow grazes and a fashionably dressed horseman rides off on a white horse. The waterwheel behind Saint Catherine may allude to the wheel of her martyrdom, but similar waterwheels occur in other paintings by Memling where the saint is not present.
Memling was a good businessman and ran an efficient workshop. He presumably produced a fairly detailed preliminary design based on the Triptych of the Two Saints John (Memling Museum, Bruges) by recycling and recombining workshop patterns. Technical analysis reveals rather sketchy and untidy underdrawing with few major alterations, so the underdrawing probably follows the approved design accurately. Memling’s skill and economy of effort are also seen in the execution. He used tracings for the patterned cloth behind the Virgin, and the translucent gauze at Lady Donne’s neck was achieved not through white paint but by leaving the ground unpainted. It is the lack of white highlights that makes the distinction between skin and fabric.
The main changes are in the donors‘ heads. Sir John’s nose was enlarged, and rapid, hatched brushstrokes indicate shadows and stubble. His head seems to have been painted rapidly and from life. Memling also altered Lady Donne’s face and headdress. Initially she looked very like the youthful Saint Barbara but in the course of painting she was made – presumably – more realistic, with thinner lips and a sharper nose. It seems that Memling first painted an idealised head but changed it either when he met Lady Donne or was supplied with better information by her husband.
The apple which the angel offers to the Christ Child appears in many of Memling’s paintings, including a triptych of which two panels in the National Gallery’s collection were the wings. It refers to the Fall: Christ is the ’Second Adam' and Redeemer.
| Artist | Hans Memling |
|---|---|
| Artist dates | active 1465; died 1494 |
| Full title | The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors (The Donne Triptych) |
| Group | The Donne Triptych |
| Date made | about 1478 |
| Medium and support | Oil on oak |
| Dimensions | 71 x 70.3 cm |
| Acquisition credit | Acquired under the terms of the Finance Act from the Duke of Devonshire's Collection, 1957 |
| Inventory number | NG6275.1 |
| Location in Gallery | Room 63 |
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The Donne Triptych
Courtier and soldier Sir John Donne kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child in the central panel of this triptych (a painting in three parts), which he commissioned, facing his wife Elizabeth and one of their daughters. With them are Saints Catherine and Barbara, two of the most popular medieval saints; the wings show Donne’s patron saints, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist. On the outside of the wings Saints Christopher and Anthony Abbot are shown as stone statues in niches.
The younger son of a Welsh soldier, Donne was a career administrator who owed his fortune to King Edward IV. He and his wife wear the King’s livery collars. The composition is a version of Memling’s famous Triptych of the Two Saints John (Memling Museum, Bruges), which he worked on in the late 1470s. Perhaps Donne saw it in Memling’s workshop and asked for something similar.
Sir John Donne – courtier, soldier and commissioner of this small triptych – kneels before the Virgin and Christ Child in the triptych’s central panel, facing his wife Elizabeth Hastings and one of their daughters. They are being presented to the Virgin by Saints Catherine of Alexandria and Barbara. Donne’s patron saints, John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, appear on the triptych’s wings; on the outside of these, Saint Christopher and Saint Anthony Abbot are painted in grisaille to look like stone statues in niches.
Donne, whose coats of arms are attached to the capitals in the centre panel and reappear in the stained-glass window of the right wing, was the younger son of a Welsh soldier and owed his rise to fame and fortune to King Edward IV. At this time, rival branches of the royal family were fighting for control of the English throne, in a conflict now known as the Wars of the Roses: the House of Lancaster (associated with a red rose) and the House of York (whose symbol was a white rose). Both Donne and his wife wear the King’s livery collars of suns and roses with white, presumably enamelled, lions as a sign of their political allegiance to the house of York.
He must have been one of Hans Memling’s best connected clients. The royal family and their immediate circle were his friends and associates. His wife, Elizabeth Hastings, was sister of Edward’s favourite, William, Lord Hastings and lady-in-waiting to Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Both Hastings and Edward IV were important patrons of Netherlandish artists, and in Edward’s service Donne came into contact with his ‘true friend’ Margaret of York, his ‘bonne amie’ Mary of Burgundy and other significant patrons in the Low Countries. He owned several Netherlandish manuscripts, including a spectacular illuminated Book of Hours. Not from the first ranks of the aristocracy himself, art was perhaps a way of emphasising his closeness with the inner circles of royal power, as well as his piety.
In 1468 he was in Bruges for the extravagant wedding of Edward’s sister Margaret to the Duke of Burgundy. He might have been with Edward in his exile in the Netherlands in 1470–71; certainly he fought for him at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, a decisive battle in the Wars of the Roses, and was knighted on the field. He acted as ambassador to the French and Burgundian courts in the 1470s, as well as being closely involved in the government of Calais, then the only remaining English possession on the Continent. He died in 1503 and he and his wife were eventually buried alongside Edward IV in Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor.
Memling was a businessman as well as an artist. He ran an efficient workshop and recycled and reused existing compositions and figures with skill and efficiency. This triptych is so similar to the Triptych of the Two Saints John (Memling Museum, Bruges) that it must be from much the same period; perhaps Donne saw it in Memling’s workshop and asked for something similar. All the figures – except, of course, the donors – and many of the objects recur in other pictures by Memling or from his workshop: in the National Gallery’s collection alone, the same Virgin is in The Virgin and Child with an Angel, Saint George and a Donor and the figure of the Baptist is also in Saint John the Baptist. Even members of the Donne family were probably partly painted from patterns. Lady Donne’s clothes are more suited to a Burgundian aristocrat than the wife of a minor Welsh nobleman, and her face and hat were adapted at a late stage.
We don‘t know exactly when Donne commissioned the painting but the content gives us clues. Probably born in the early 1420s, Donne would have been in his fifties in the 1470s, and the donor in Memling’s picture is a clearly middle-aged man: his hair is thin and his face lined. He was married to Elizabeth Hastings by March 1465. His wife was perhaps considerably younger than him, and might be in her thirties. They had several children including two surviving daughters, Anne and Margaret. Their oldest surviving son, Edward, seems to have been born in or after 1482. As he is not shown it seems likely that when the order was placed the Donnes had only one child, a girl, who looks about six to eight years old. We don’t know when their daughters were born, but a date in the mid- or late 1470s seems probable.
The triptych was not necessarily commissioned for any specific church or chapel. Sir John’s parents had obtained papal permission to have a portable altar in 1443 and it is possible that he had altars in his residences. The Donnes had estates in South Wales and a house at Calais, though his principal seat seems to have been at Horsenden in Buckinghamshire. He and his wife were buried in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and it’s possible that the picture was intended for a chantry chapel there, although it seems more likely to have been for private use.
