Saint Jean Baptiste

c. 1430s

Born

until c. 1455

Early years on the Rhine: Seligenstadt, Mainz, Cologne

Memling is presumed to have learned the craft in the Benedictine abbey at Seligenstadt and to have formed as an artist in Cologne: the influence of Stefan Lochner can be traced in his painting. He probably spent his childhood in Mainz and served his apprenticeship in Mainz or Cologne.

1465

Citizenship of Bruges and the Guild of St Luke

Memling moves to Bruges, receives citizenship and becomes a member of the Guild of St Luke; the register of citizens lists him as “Jan van Mimmelinghe, born in Seligenstadt”. He lives on Sint-Jorisstraat in the painters’ quarter and becomes one of the city’s leading artists, master of a large workshop.

1466–1494 · Werkzaam in

Bruges

1473

“The Last Judgment” is captured by a Danzig privateer

The triptych, commissioned for a chapel at Fiesole by Angelo Tani, former director of the Bruges branch of the Medici bank, is shipped to Italy by sea; in April 1473 the vessel is captured by the Danzig privateer Paul Beneke. Neither the Medici bank’s protests nor a bull of Pope Sixtus IV win the painting back, and it stays in Danzig, now Gdańsk.

11 augustus 1494

Died