Pagagnotti Triptych

The city had a branch of the Medici Bank, a large contingent of southern merchants, and paintings and various other art works were steadily exported south to Italy.

[7] In 1995, the art historian Michael Rohlmann established that the Virgin and Child with Two Angels in the Uffizi and the two panels of saints at the National Gallery had originally been a Memling triptych.

Based on the coat of arms and the cranes on the reverse of the wing panels, Rohlmann identified the original owner as the Florentine churchmen Benedetto Pagagnotti, whose family were close associates to the Medici.

[10] The left panel has a coat of arms, with red and white chevrons and a pair of compasses on its top corners, positioned above the cranes, against the fading sky.

Rohlmann writes that "from out the landscape loom the shadowy grey form of the resting birds, their red crests shining out as isolated points of colour.

Ainsworth considers it "weak in execution"[12] and the art historian Oliver Hand suggests the flock of birds signify participation by a number of workshop members.

[13] Mary is seated on her throne holding Jesus on her lap,[10] beneath a canopy of honor decorated in characteristic Memling fashion with swags of red fabric.

[14][15] The central panel rear columns are in a barley twisted design and gilded; their capitals supporting sculptures – Samson killing the lion on the left; Cain slaying Abel on the right.

[17] A boundary is in achieved Petrus Christus's Nativity with the grisaille archway, with the Holy Family placed firmly behind the arch in the sacred space, beyond the secular and earthly realm.

Although gilded, resembling polished metal (or perhaps sculpture), the art historian Paula Nuttall writes that the plants "are concomitantly a tour de force of naturalistic observation, with their curling tendrils and delicate roots, as are the two pairs of snail and a lizard beneath them".

[1] As early as 1483 the center panel's mill with the man carrying a sack of flour was copied in Filippino Lippi's painting of Saints Paul and Frediano.

[1] The elaborate garlands, the number of putti, and the cranes on the exterior view are uncommon motifs in Memling's oeuvre, probably executed according to the client's tastes or specifications.