Triptych of Jan Crabbe
Hans Memling
about 1467-1470
Oil on panel; 78 x 63 cm (central panel), 83.3 x 26.7 cm (insides of wings, each), 83.2 x 26.5 cm (outsides of wings, each)
Vicenza, Museo Civico (central panel); New York, Pierpont Morgan Library (inside of wings); Bruges, Groeningemuseum (outside of wings)
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Central panel: Crucifixion with Abbot Jan Crabbe as Donnor and Saints John the Evangelist, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, Bernard and Virgin Mary
Left wing: Old Woman at Prayer with Saint Anne
Right wing: Young Woman at Prayer with Saint William of Maleval
Reverse: Annunciation
The triptych had been most probably commissioned by Jan Crabbe, Cistercian abbot of Ten Duinen Abbey in Koksijde, to mark the occasion of his fifteenth anniversary as prelate in 1472. The woman on the left wing was identified as Crabbe’s mother Ann and the man on the right wing was identified as his brother Willem.
The Annunciation on the exterior of the wings is one of the earliest examples in Northern Renaissance of a ‘natural’ or ‘living’ grisaille with colored figures.
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 "Triptych of Jan Crabbe")
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