Portrait of Maria Portinari

Around 1470 Tommaso Portinari, who ran the Medici bank's branch in Bruges, married Maria Baroncelli, and he commissioned Memling to paint them both. This panel of Maria is the right wing of a small hinged altarpiece; the lost centre held a Virgin and Child, and Tommaso knelt on the opposite wing, so husband and wife were praying toward the sacred image between them. Maria was only about 14. She wears the height of Bruges fashion, a tall black headdress with a sheer veil and a heavy jewelled necklace, the visible wealth of a banking family far from home. Memling sets her hands over a painted ledge that seems to jut into our space, a quiet trick that makes her feel present in the room. Her portrait and Tommaso's now hang side by side in New York.