Follower of Hans Memling
The story
Follower of Hans Memling is the label for a picture made in Memling's manner by a painter whose name is lost. It does not place the work in his workshop or in his lifetime, and it can cover panels made years after his death in Bruges in 1494.
His Madonnas lent themselves to this. A half-length Virgin behind a ledge, the Child on her lap, sometimes with a donor praying at the edge, was a type buyers recognised and asked for again. After Memling died, Gerard David became the leading painter in Bruges, and the town's workshops went on producing small devotional panels in the older manner well into the 16th century, many of them for sale on the open market rather than to a patron's order. Some borrow Memling's compositions outright, others only the calm faces and orderly rooms.
