_Unknown_ (Early Flemish: 15th century).
_See also_ (p. xx)
This portrait, which is dated 1462, was formerly supposed to be
Memlinc's portrait of himself, in the costume of the Hospital of St.
John at Bruges, but is now called by others Bouts's own portrait. "It
is," says Sir W. Armstrong (_Notes on the National Gallery_, p. 28),
"pretty surely the work of Dirck Bouts. Compare it with the Madonna
numbered 774, and ascribed to Van der Goes. In conception, in chord
of colour, in technical manner, the similarity is so complete between
them as to leave room, in my mind, for very little doubt as to the
identity of their authors. And this Madonna is by Dirck Bouts, as no
one who has examined his 'Last Supper' in the Church of St. Pierre at
Louvain can doubt.... Sir Martin Conway, who was the first, I fancy, to
recognise Bouts in all three of these pictures, drew my attention to a
curious peculiarity of his: he goes out of his way to paint hands. In
his 'Last Supper' many hands are displayed that might quite naturally
have been hidden, and we find the same thing in this portrait." Whether
of Memlinc or of Bouts, the face bespeaks a gentle, humble, pious,
laborious soul. The painting of the hair is especially remarkable.
It is touched with the utmost minuteness, and yet the silky, flowing
texture is conveyed with the utmost freedom. This picture was formerly
in the possession of Samuel Rogers.